Paradigm
by jerichosbabe
Summary: AU. In the face of a life-changing event, Chris Irvine turns to his best friend Stephanie McMahon for support. Little did they know how their lives would change because of it.
1. Chapter 1

Fear and dread crept into him as he stood in front of the large third story window. The traffic below him was moving at its constant, steady pace much like the clock on the wall that continued to count second after second. The world outside had not ended, time had not stopped, but Chris Irvine's world felt like it had just crumbled to dust around him. There was a light rain falling outside the window and Chris traced the path of the water droplets down the glass with his eyes, in an attempt to think about absolutely nothing else. He didn't want to think about what he now had to do. He didn't want to think about what had led him to this point. He didn't want to think _period_. He simply wanted to stare out the window until the world made sense to him once more.

As the air conditioning unit kicked on again and he felt the blast of cold air, he absently realized that he was still just wearing a t-shirt and a loose pair of gyms pants over his wrestling gear, even though his match had ended more than ten hours before. Chris let out a humorless snort at the thought. Ten hours ago he had been on top of the world, ready to take on anything the world threw at him. Ten hours ago he had no idea what he would endure before the night was out. He looked down to the coffee in the Styrofoam cup he was holding, wondering when he had been handed coffee and quickly dismissing it before taking a small sip. It had grown cool in the amount of time he had been holding it, but it still tasted fine. He looked out the window once more, ignoring the emotions swirling around inside him, slowly losing himself in the memories of the night once again.

"_Mr. Irvine?" The doctor asked him, stirring Chris's focus from that of his wife's pained face to the man standing next to her bed. "We need to get her prepped for surgery. We have to move her now." Chris nodded and turned back to his wife, kissing her on the forehead._

"_I promise I'll be right outside." He said to her. She looked up at him, the slightest amount of fear entering her normally calm gaze._

"_Promise me everything will be all right." She told him, grabbing his forearm before he could pull away from her. "Promise me."_

_He promised her it would and he held her hand until they wheeled her through the swinging double doors, where he could see the heads of the nurses and the doctor beginning to move around like pistons in a well-oiled engine, doing what they do best. He stood and watched them for a few moments before sitting in the chair across the hall. _

_The seconds felt like years in that chair, so he wasn't entirely sure how long he spent sitting there, watching the other nurses in the hospital as they hurried past him, looking through the small window of the sliding door to see what progress they were making. Only twice did he get up from the chair – once for a restroom visit and the second when a nurse had emerged from the room, only to rush past him into another._

_By the time the doctor re-emerged from the operating room, fear had started to grip him. He stood up and met the doctor halfway. The doctor pulled off the surgeon's mask he was wearing, and the expression on his face didn't appear promising._

"_How is she?" He asked the doctor. The doctor looked at him solemnly before answering._

"_I'm…sorry to have to tell you this Mr. Irvine." He started to say as Chris felt himself tense. "Your wife didn't make it." He felt as if all of the oxygen in the room had suddenly vanished. _

The small bundle in Chris's arms started to wiggle around at this point and he quickly set his coffee on the windowsill before gently rocking his newborn son. The baby blinked his eyes open sleepily, as if to reassure himself that his father was still there, before letting them close again. He wiggled around a little more and Chris shifted him in his arms to hold him a little closer. He was surprised at how fast he had picked up the ability of just knowing what to do and what he thought his son would want. He knew it wouldn't extend to everything, but he was grateful that there was some sort of parental instinct kicking in. Upon hearing his son take a deep breath and slide back into sleep, he found himself mesmerized by that tiny little face he almost didn't get to see.

_His heart leapt in his throat as he tried to ask his next question._

"_The…the baby?" He managed to choke out. The doctor still held a solemn expression._

"_He's having some complications right now, but I've got the best this hospital has to offer working with him." He promised, placing a reassuring hand on Chris's shoulder. "If you'll excuse me, I have to get back." Chris nodded aimlessly and stared at the tiles on the floor as the doctor entered the operating room once more. _

"_She's gone." He whispered to himself, having every moment they had ever spent together flash before his eyes. He couldn't believe it. It wasn't supposed to end like this. They were supposed to grow old together. They were supposed to live long, happy lives together and have several children and even grandchildren before one of them left on that long train goodbye. She was not supposed to leave him on the night that their first child was born. More than that, his child, his __**son**__ – since the doctor had said 'he' – was not supposed to be having complications right after birth. Losing her was bad enough, but losing them both…when his world had started to revolve around both of them so much…he didn't think he could handle that._

_In his spare time he had taken to pacing, refusing to acknowledge the loss of his wife until the panic of his son had passed, one way or the other. He would have plenty of time to grieve and feel sorry for himself afterwards. He instead focused all of his prayers and thoughts on his little boy in the room with the double doors. On one of his rounds down the hall, he caught sight of the window that he was still standing in front of now and decided that he would stare out at the traffic in an effort to calm himself._

"_Chris?" A woman's voice asked from behind him. He turned around to see none other than Stephanie McMahon-Levesque walking towards him. He gave her a tight smile as she engulfed him in a hug. She hugged him for only a few seconds before pulling back to look at him. _

"_How are you holding up?" She asked him seriously. He shrugged and looked away from her._

"_As good as can be expected, I guess." He admitted. _

"_Any more news about Ash?" She asked him. He shook his head, still staring out the window._

"_I haven't even seen him yet." He mused. "God only knows if I'll get to." Stephanie placed a hand on her best friend's shoulder._

"_He'll pull through Chris." She reassured him. "He'll be okay." Chris swallowed thickly and looked at her with misty eyes._

"_Don't promise me things you can't, Stephanie. I've made that mistake once already tonight." He told her. She didn't have to ask him what he was talking about. She'd been his first call once he sat back down. She had threatened that she would make him feud with Carlito if she wasn't the first person he called after his child was born – both his and Jessica's parents were already deceased and they were both the only children in their family. She'd been beaming with excitement when she answered the phone, but knew that something was wrong the second he opened his mouth. No sooner were the_ _words "She's gone" uttered, Stephanie was in her car and on her way towards him. _

"_I don't know what the hell I'm going to do if he doesn't pull through." He admitted to her quietly. "Hell, I don't know what I'll do if he __**does**__." She turned to face him._

"_What are you talking about?" She asked. He moved his gaze from the window to her face, but she could tell he wasn't really focusing on her._

"_I don't have the first clue about how to raise a kid, Steph." He said to her. "Jess was the one taking the classes and reading the books…I mean I understand the basic idea of what to do… But I just…how am I supposed to take care of him and do this," He gestured at his clothes "at the same time?"_

"_We'll figure something out." She told him. "Don't worry about that."_

"_It's more than that, Steph…" He said to her, really looking at her this time and she could see how much of a toll this night had taken on him already – how haggard his face was beginning to look and the dark circles that were starting to fill in around his bloodshot eyes. _

"_It's…I just…" He stumbled over his thoughts. "I just don't think I can __**do**__ this by myself." He admitted. "I mean, I'm not going to give him up or anything crazy like that, but I just don't feel like I'll be able to…raise a child on my own. I mean, what if I screw him up for life?" Stephanie felt the corners of her mouth turn up._

"_Chris," she said, putting a hand on his arm. "It's perfectly natural for you to feel like this. All new parents have the same fear – Shane was completely terrified when his first was born." She told him. _

"_Shane also had Marissa with him the whole time." Chris pointed out. _

"_If there is anyone in this world who is capable enough to raise a decent child on their own, Chris, it's you." She told him seriously. "You juggle fifty different activities as a hobby, why would raising a child be that much of a challenge to you?" He snorted humorlessly and looked down towards the "double doors of doom" as he had started to call them in his head before taking another sip of coffee. Paul wandered up behind Stephanie at that moment._

"_Sorry it took me so long, parking was a nightmare." Paul said to her before turning and placing a reassuring hand on Chris's shoulder. "I'm really sorry about Jessica, Chris." He said, in an attempt to be civil. Chris nodded and muttered his thanks as he saw the doctor walk back out of the operating room._

"_Hold this." He said to Stephanie, quickly passing the coffee off to her before jogging down the hall to meet the doctor._

"_How is he?" He asked the doctor, his voice clipped from anxiety and exhaustion. This time the doctor smiled at him, clapping a hand on the same shoulder Paul just had._

"_He's going to be fine." The doctor told him. Relief washed over Chris instantaneously. "We thought we were going to lose him for a little bit there, but your son's a fighter." The doctor said. Chris managed a smile, and turned to give Steph a quick thumbs up._

"_Can I see him?" Chris asked. The doctor nodded._

"_Just as soon as I can get a name to put on his tag." He said, handing Chris a clipboard with the birth certificate on it. _

That had been four hours ago, and Chris hadn't let his son out of his sight since then. He had finally convinced the nurses to let him hold him an hour ago, and the moment Ash Edward Irvine was passed into his father's arms, the world had almost reached perfection. The only thing missing was his wife. He had kept the thought of her death at a distance – trying to focus on the positive rather than the negative, but he knew that sooner or later he would have to deal with it fully. Standing here, holding this infant, he was more scared than he had ever been in his life - knowing that he had to suddenly provide for it and take care of it and that it was completely defenseless and helpless without him. It was an overpowering thought to deal with while still coming to terms with the loss of a loved one. Stephanie wandered up beside him, smiling over his shoulder at the infant in his arms. He turned to look at her and found himself smiling at the grin on her face.

"Hey there little guy." She said softly to him, not wanting to disturb him. "You're a natural at this whole dad thing." She commented, turning to look at Chris. He shrugged.

"Thought you and Paul had left." He remarked.

"I told him to go ahead and go." She said. "Thought you might like a little moral support…and someone else to drive you home to finally take a shower." He looked back down at his son again.

"I don't know if I can bear to let him out of my sight." He told her. "Even though holding him feels so perfect, it's just…not right without her here, you know?" The thought dawned on him that he now had a funeral to plan in addition to taking care of a newborn son and he took a deep breath.

"Don't you start thinking about all of that, Chris Irvine." Stephanie said to him, reading his thoughts like usual. "And don't you start thinking that you're in this alone." She lightly punched his arm. "You're crazy if you think I'm going to let my best friend deal with two of life's biggest changes without standing by your side." He gave her a grateful smile and she wrapped an arm around him as they both watched the first light of morning pour through the window in front of them, unaware of what the future had in store.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I'd like to give a big thank you and shout out to those who reviewed the first chapter - dodjet, SmoochyAddict, and the wonderful DCFanatic4life (Nina). I really appreciate you all taking the time to read and review! **

Chris stared at the casket in front of him, his eyes glued to the wooden box that would house his wife's body forever. Of course he logically knew it wouldn't _actually_ hold up forever. He knew that eventually everything disintegrates at some point or another, but he found he got more peace of mind when he simply let "forever" finish his thoughts. It had been a week since Jessica's death and Ash's birth. Ash was spending his last few hours of observation in the hospital, and Chris fully intended on picking him up on the way home from this dreadful place.

He was sweating horribly in his suit - the temperature was nearing a record high today, something that was strange for September, even in Florida. The sun was shining brightly and there wasn't a cloud in sight, which he found disappointed him. He'd always associated funerals with rain, as if Heaven itself was sad for Earth's loss. It had rained for both his parents' funerals, as well as Jessica's father's funeral. It was just something that seemed a necessary occurrence for funerals, and yet here he was, standing in 96 degree sunny weather, wearing a full suit and tie staring at his wife's casket.

Stephanie and Shane were standing to his left, the priest overseeing the funeral on his right. Paul was on behind Stephanie, with the rest of their close friends and co-workers rounding out the group. The few friends of Jessica's that Chris had managed to contact were too far out of state to attend in person, but sent their condolences regardless. It saddened him that there weren't more people here to see her off, or that her own son wouldn't witness it, but he thought (and Stephanie agreed) they should go ahead and have the funeral before Ash was released from the hospital. He wouldn't be able to remember it, and Chris was beginning to think that the heat would have been too much for him to handle anyway.

The priest was somewhere in the middle of his sermon, and as much as Chris had tried to pay attention to what he was saying, he simply couldn't. In between thoughts of the planning that had led him to this point and his son, he kept getting bombarded with the best memories of their life together. Their first date - how they had gone out to see a movie and get ice cream and how she'd gotten some on her face trying to eat it and he thought it was the cutest thing how embarrassed she got when he told her about it. He thought about when he had proposed to her and how nervous he had been beforehand. She always had the ability to make him feel like he was invincible, like he was perfect and everything a man should be. Despite every good sense of reason in his head, he went back and watched their wedding tape last night after the wake.

_Seeing everything so wonderful and everyone around them so happy – back when both of his parents had been alive. Losing his parents three years ago had been rough for both of them, losing her father the following year made it worse. Jessica's mother had died when she was a little girl, but Chris had seen the pictures of her. When the shot of their first dance had ended, Chris was reaching for the remote to stop it, tears rolling down his face before another clip came on, one he had never seen before._

"_I think I've got this thing going." Jessica's voice came through the speakers, "Oh crap." He heard before the black screen finally showed something. "Helps when you take the cap off Jess." She muttered and he found himself smiling. The camera was zoomed in on a woman's face he didn't recognize._

"_Okay, this is Julie – say hi Julie." Jessica said. The nurse – Julie – smiled and waved. "She's doing the last ultrasound before the due date and our little bundle of joy gets here. I know you wanted to be here for this Chris, but thanks to the fact that you're somewhere across the country winning matches and providing for your family, I thought I'd find a way so you can be. Figuratively speaking. So here it goes." The camera panned over to the monitor next to the bed and Chris watched in fascination as the image of his baby appeared on the screen and Julie pointed out all of the things he would have never been able to tell. Once the exam was over and Julie gave Jessica the clean bill of health, Jessica turned the camera around to talk into it._

"_So you see Chris, final exam before the date and everything is going to be fine, just like I told you to begin with. I can't wait until the baby gets here so we can finally have a name for them!" She said, smiling before the camera started to beep. "Annnnd the battery's dying… hopefully I figure out how to send this so you can get it in your email tonight and I want you to know that baby Irvine and I love you more than anything in the world. See you soon." She said, blowing a kiss before the video ended. _

_He reached out and touched the screen where her face had just been before finally letting his emotions get the better of him. He broke down right in front of the television in the living room, crying and screaming obscenities at the silence in the house around him. He pounded his fists into carpet and let it all out where no one could see him or take pity on him. He wanted more than anything for things to simply go back to normal, where he wouldn't come home to five new messages from friends or co-workers or long-lost relatives "extending their condolences" or sympathy cards in the mail from people telling him they were "sorry for his loss." He didn't __**want**__ them to feel sorry for him and he sure as hell didn't want their condolences._

He wanted his wife back.

Chris shifted his weight and remembered how Stephanie had come over this morning to find him asleep on the floor, having cried himself into exhaustion. And while he could tell she wanted to say something to him about the state of disarray the room was in, she kept silent, merely helping him up and staying in the living room while he showered and got himself pulled together enough for this. For the final goodbye.

When the priest wrapped up his sermon, Chris stepped forward to place two white roses on her casket – one for him and one for his son. His hand hovered for a moment and in those few seconds he wondered if he would be able to let her go, to place these flowers and watch them lower her into the ground. But when the thought of his son entered his mind again, he knew he would _have_ to let her go, at least somewhat. He placed the roses gently on top of the casket and watched as everyone else followed suit. The small group that had gathered slowly began to disperse, while Chris remained there, watching the casket sink. He could feel Stephanie still standing next to him, waiting for him to make the first move away. When the machine that lowered her casket shut off, he took a deep breath and whispered his last goodbye to her before turning around and walking out of the graveyard with Stephanie at his side, not daring to look back.

"There's my good boy!" Chris exclaimed, the sight of his son brightening him considerably. Stephanie stood behind him, smiling, holding the car keys in one hand and Ash's new car seat in the other. "Are you ready to go home?" Ash wiggled and made a sort of happy cooing sound, which Chris took as a yes. Chris turned around to Stephanie and helped her lift the car seat onto the table in the room.

"I really appreciate you doing all of this, Stephanie." He told her as he worked Ash into the car seat.

"That's all right, I'm keeping a running tab of my time spent helping you. You can expect a bill in the mail." She joked, getting a small chuckle out of him.

"I'll keep an eye out for it." He promised, buckling Ash in and lifting the car seat off the table to carry his son to the car. Stephanie placed a hand on his arm as he started to walk away.

"Look," She started. "I know you don't like to talk about this kind of stuff and I'm not much of one to talk about it either, but I just want to know …and this is a horrible question… Are you going to be all right?" He stared at her. "Stupid way of phrasing that, I know. I just…I want you to tell me that you're not thinking of doing anything…stupid. Jessica may be gone, Chris, but Ash is not. And you're all he has right now."

"I know that." He said quietly.

"Then look me in the eye and _promise_ me. _Swear_ to me you're not contemplating anything irrational." She told him sternly. He knew that she had lost a close friend to suicide years before, after a tragic accident and knew that was likely the main reason she refused to leave his side throughout this whole ordeal. He gently set Ash's car seat down on the ground and turned to her.

"Steph," he started, gently holding her arms to bring her face to face with him, making sure to look her firmly in the eyes. "I **promise** you that I'm not thinking about killing myself." She winced when he outright said the words she had skated around. "I understand that Jessica is gone and there's nothing I can do about it. However, I also understand that there is a little boy – _my_ little boy – who is now dependent on me to take care of him. Am I upset about losing her? Yes. Do I plan on joining her right now? No. She wouldn't want it, and neither do I." He said. "Now does this mean that I'm okay…I don't know. I don't feel okay at all. Other than the breakdown last night, I feel pretty numb for the most part, but logically I know in time it'll fade like it did with my parents' deaths. Logically I do. Of course what I think and what I feel are two very different things. Until then, it's just going to be one day at a time, one foot in front of the other… hopefully with you around telling me that something's not being done the way it should be." He said, smiling, trying to ease her fears. She studied him for a few moments before nodding.

"All right, I'm trusting you on this one, Chris." She said to him. "But I swear to God, you do something stupid-"

"I'm not Jordan." He said, cutting her off. Stephanie fell silent and Chris let his grip fall so his hands were at his sides. "I know that's what you're thinking, Steph. I know how similar this is, and I'm telling you – to your face, point blank, mano-e-mano, tete-e-tete – whatever proper euphemism you want to use. I'm telling you **I won't**. I appreciate, and more than that – I _understand_, your concern for me Steph. But you gotta know, I'm **_not_ _her_**." He said, reaching down to pick up the car seat. Stephanie had a few tears in her eyes by the time he was finished, but in true Stephanie fashion, she wasn't letting them fall. Letting her eyes get all teary was one thing, crying was another. He put a reassuring arm around her shoulders and started to steer them towards the entrance so Stephanie could drive him home.

At two-thirty the next morning though, Chris was about to come unhinged.

Ash had started crying at one, and Chris had managed to calm him down and get him back to sleep without much problem then, but this time, for the past _forty-five minutes _he just refused to stop crying. Chris had tried everything – he rocked him, he sang to him, laid him in the crib, laid him on his own bed, changed his diaper, tried to feed him…_nothing_ was working. And Chris was at his wits end.

"Come on, little guy," he said, holding Ash in his arms and rocking him back and forth as he bounced his steps pacing around the room. He tried to keep a calm demeanor, thinking that he'd read somewhere that babies can smell fear and it'll just make things worse to get upset yourself. Or something to that effect. "Just tell Daddy what's wrong and he can fix it for you." He said soothingly. Ash just kept on crying. Chris was about to start crying himself out of frustration.

He just kept thinking about how he wished he wouldn't have told Stephanie to go to her hotel. She'd resisted him for a while, saying that it was his first night with a baby in the house, but since Ash had been so well behaved the whole evening Chris told her to go and get some rest – a decision he had regretted every moment since. He was beginning to think maybe it was some kind of woman thing… like only women have the ability to keep babies calm, in which case he was royally screwed. Deep down though, Chris knew what Ash really needed was his mother. Which of course, was the one thing he couldn't give.

"You probably want Mommy right now, don't you?" He asked him, still rocking and pacing. Ash continued to cry. Chris wanted to believe that eventually Ash would cry himself out. It wasn't a permanent solution to the problem, of course, but at least he might eventually get a few solid hours of sleep. He looked at the unhappy baby in his arms and an idea dawned on him. Chris made his way downstairs to the living room, turning on the TV with one hand and popping in the video he had watched yesterday. "Shhh…it's okay buddy, I'm getting Mommy." He reassured him. When Jessica's face popped up on the screen, Chris turned Ash around to see her, and at first Chris thought it was going to be a waste of time. But slowly, Ash started to calm himself down watching the bright lights of the screen and hearing his mother's voice. Chris stared at his son and watched in awe as he finally closed his eyes and fell back asleep.

Chris let his head fall back against the back of the chair, not daring to move his body for fear of waking Ash up and having to go through the whole ordeal a second time. He heaved a sigh of relief and heard the video come to its end again.

"_I want you to know that baby Irvine and I love you more than anything in the world. See you soon."_

He turned the TV off and let the silence fill his ears. There was no way he was going to be able to endure months upon months of this. Not a chance in hell. He'd wind up committed before Ash was a year old. Then again, if all Ash needed to sleep when he got ϋber fussy was the sound of Jessica's voice, maybe he could just keep playing the tape over and over again. He didn't really want to keep ripping that wound open, but he might not have much of a choice, given the alternative. He looked at Ash once more before propping his feet up and leaning back in the chair, gently maneuvering Ash so he was sleeping on his chest. As he laid in the chair, he couldn't help but think of it as a small victory for him in the giant war of parenting. Maybe he _could_ do this. Maybe he could handle being a lone parent. Maybe things would get easier as he went along with this. Maybe, maybe, maybe. In the meantime, his son was sound asleep on his chest and he was about to join him. It wasn't the perfect situation, but it worked.

And that was all that mattered for now.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Once again, many thanks to SmoochyAddict for the lovely review! I know there's more of you out there reading - don't be shy! Leave a few words about what you think - even if you don't like it! I appreciate all the feedback I can get. **

Stephanie stood on the front step to Chris's house, trying to figure out what she wanted her next move to be. She'd already knocked on the door twice, and she didn't want to ring the doorbell for fear of waking Ash up if he was still sleeping. She chewed her bottom lip and looked at her watch wondering again if 6:45 was too early for her to be here before finally deciding to let herself in quietly and try to find Chris to make sure he was okay before packing for her flight this evening. She hated the idea of leaving him down here to fend for himself, but she promised her father that she would be back to work on Monday, since he needed her to look over some things for him. Plus, Paul would likely get irritated that he was at home by himself on his last day off. He once complained to her about her making plans and not being home the days he was, since he "was on the road by himself all the time, he didn't want to come home to an empty house." Which of course, was just a nicer way of saying he wanted her there so he could get laid.

Okay, so that wasn't the **only** reason he wanted her there. She knew that he cared about her and they did do other things besides _that_ when he was home, but it was starting to seem more and more like that was the only thing they really did _together_. She blamed it on how stressed out he was with his storylines and this new project he'd taken on of helping to train some of the younger, up-and-coming guys. It was sucking a lot of time and energy out of him so when he got home, all he wanted to do was relax and unwind, which (apparently) she was good at helping him with.

Steph walked over to the garage and punched the code to get in, thinking to herself that she needed to get a garage door opener that was as quiet as Chris's. She walked in and closed the garage door behind her, heading to the far back of the garage find the spare key. She noticed that Jessica's car was still parked in the garage and made a mental note to help Chris with that when the time came as well. She unlocked the door to the house and walked in, setting the key on the bar in the kitchen, along with her purse. The house was completely silent.

"Chris?" she called out, feeling the slightest tingle of fear start to creep its way in. Her mind was starting to whisper its cruel remarks about believing him yesterday and leaving him alone to deal with a baby by himself. She pushed them away as she walked up the stairs first, bypassing the living room. She peeked into Ash's room first, only to find him gone from his crib. She quickened her pace into Chris's room, finding that one empty too, with the bed only slightly rumpled, as if he'd only sat on top of the sheets once rather than slept in them for the night. After glancing in the two bathrooms and the office that were upstairs, she found herself jogging back down the steps, her fear escalating significantly. She kept telling herself they had to be here somewhere – both cars were still in the garage. She dashed into the living room and quickly came to a stop.

The fear of not being able to find them vanished as she saw Chris sound asleep in the recliner with Ash sleeping on his chest. Chris had his arms wrapped around him and was even snoring a little bit. Stephanie felt a smile tug at the corners of her mouth and just stood there, taking in how adorable the scene was in front of her. She chuckled lightly and fished her phone out to take a picture of them before waking Chris up. Once she had captured the father-son Hallmark moment, she tiptoed over to Chris and gently poked him in the shoulder.

"Chris." She whispered. He didn't move, so she poked him a little harder. "Chris!" She noticed Ash wiggling at this point, looking like he was waking up. Ash started to whimper a little, which Stephanie knew would blow up into an all-out cryfest if it wasn't taken care of quickly. She gently lifted him out of Chris's sleeping grasp and cradled him, swaying back and forth with him as she walked to the kitchen, fishing out the bottle of formula for him that she'd seen Chris put away yesterday. She gave it to him and walked back in the living room to sit on the couch and feed him.

Stephanie had never really entertained the thought of having children before, since both she and Paul were pretty focused on their careers at this point they thought it would be a bad idea to introduce kids to the mix. But sitting here, watching this little baby take his bottle, with those cute eyes and little button nose, it dawned on her that this was something she wanted. She wanted to be a mother.

"You're a natural at that." She heard Chris tell her, sleep still lining his voice. She smiled and looked at him.

"Hardly."

"Well he's not crying, and that's a win by itself." Chris commented, stretching and sitting up. "He was up at quarter to two crying and didn't quit until about three."

"Why didn't you call me?" She asked him. "You know I would have come back over – it's not like I was that far away."

"Yeah, I know…" he said, yawning and running a hand through his hair before looking at his watch. "No wonder I'm still tired." He mumbled. "What are you doing here so early anyways?"

"Checking up on you two." She told him, smiling at Ash. Chris couldn't help but smile a little himself as he pushed himself into a standing position. "Especially since I'm gonna be leaving in about twelve hours." Chris looked confused for a second.

"Oh yeah, you're flying back to Connecticut tonight. Forgot about that." He remarked, stretching his back. "I guess I should get my stuff together too."

"Why would you be getting your stuff together?" She asked him, setting the bottle down and moving Ash up to burp him.

"I've got to go back to work sometime, don't I?" He remarked.

"Chris, think about this for a second, you just buried your wife yesterday and spent most of last night with a screaming newborn." She pointed out. "Maybe you should take another couple of weeks to get back into the swing of things here before coming back to work. It's not like my father's a slave driver. He understands you're going to need some time."

"What I need is for everybody to stop feeling sorry for me so things can go back to normal." He snapped. Stephanie looked away from him and focused on Ash again for a little bit as Chris took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you. You've been my rock through all of this, and I honestly don't know what I would have done without you here with me, but I just… I need something normal for me to hang on to. Going back to work just seems like the right thing for me right now. I can't stand to be cooped up here in the house all the time staring at all of this-" he gestured around to the pictures in the living room, almost all were of him and Jessica "-while having to sit and watch other people out in the ring doing my job for me."

"Do you have any idea how difficult this is going to be for you – travelling with Ash? Have you thought about how hard it's going to be to take care of him _and_ be on the road at the same time?" She asked him. He opened his mouth to say something to her, then closed it again and took another deep breath.

"I know this isn't going to be easy, but I want to do it." He said to her. "I want to do what I love and take care of my son. That's it. I want to move on from this horrible week and work on getting along with my life, is that so selfish of me?" He asked. She leveled eyes with him.

"No. It's not." She admitted. He ran a hand through his hair again and scratched his head for a few seconds. "Have you thought about who's going to watch him during your matches?" She asked. He shrugged at this.

"Shouldn't be too hard to find someone to watch him for a little bit." He told her. "I bet Jay or Randy or any one of the guys would help me out."

"You expect them to know how to behave around a baby?" She scoffed.

"I figured it out, didn't I?" He pointed out. She sighed and nodded. He walked over to her and knelt in front of where she was sitting on the couch, Ash wiggling around in her arms. He reached out and tickled his son's belly before looking up at her.

"I'll figure out a way to make it work, Steph. You don't have to worry about it." He promised her.

"You're my best friend. I'm _supposed_ to worry about it." She told him. He smiled.

"Fine." He said, before looking at her seriously. "Are you okay with me doing this?" He asked.

"Are you asking for my permission?" She asked him, amused. He snorted.

"No." He admitted. "But I'd like to know you're on my side if I need help down in the trenches." She smirked at him.

"Well, I don't think it's the best idea you've ever had, but you know I'm there for you if you need me." She promised him, placing a hand on the side of his face, cupping his chin. He smiled.

"Thank you." He said. "Think you can handle him while I take a quick shower?" Stephanie waved him off and nodded.

"Yes, please go and get clean, I could smell you from outside." He made a face at her and jogged up to the bathroom. Stephanie looked down at Ash again, who was staring at her rather intently and wondered how in the hell Chris was going to juggle his hectic wrestling schedule with a baby by himself. Those guys were not going to be much help to him, she knew. They'd be okay doing it once or twice, but most of them were doing good if they kept _themselves_ out of trouble, much less look after a baby. Maybe they would surprise her though.

She decided she'd watch a little news while she was waiting on Chris, so she reached for the remote, accidentally pushing a few buttons as she grabbed it. The TV came on and the video Chris had played last night to calm Ash down started to play again. Stephanie felt her heart break for Chris all over again once the clip came to an end. No wonder he wanted to get out of the house so bad. Stephanie realized it wasn't just the pictures everywhere that was haunting Chris in this house, it was the memories – the ghosts around every corner that threatened his sanity the most.

She made her decision right then to speak to her father about coming back to TV. She knew Paul would hate it since she would be on RAW with Chris where he was on Smackdown which would screw up their "days home together," but for the time being he would just have to get over it. She wasn't about to let Chris handle this by himself, no matter how much he thought he could handle.

"So how was Chris doing?" Paul asked her, kissing her on the lips briefly before taking her suitcase as she walked inside. Stephanie shrugged.

"As good as can be, I guess." She told him. "He won't really open up to me about it, but I think that having Ash there is good for him. Keeps him occupied." She paused. "Hey, can we talk about something?"

"Sure, shoot." He said to her, setting the suitcase down. She wrapped her arms around his neck.

"What do you think about having a baby?" She asked him sweetly. Paul took a deep breath.

"Stephanie…" He started to whine. "We've been through this." Stephanie let her arms drop and rolled her eyes at him.

"The only thing we've said on the subject is that we are more so career-oriented people than family-oriented." She said. Paul nodded.

"Yeah, so? What more do you need? We don't have the time to raise a kid right now. You're busy with work, I'm busy with work. We don't need to have a baby right now." He said, picking up her suitcase and starting to walk upstairs with it.

"Don't you care what **I** think about the topic?" She asked him. He stopped on the steps and turned to look at her.

"Of course I care what you think, honey, but I just…I just think we need to give it more time yet." He said. Stephanie rolled her eyes at him once again as he turned back to continue up the steps. She wasn't finished with this conversation, but obviously he was. She bit her tongue to keep from making a snide remark about how neither one of them were getting any younger and decided she didn't want to argue with him tonight. She just wanted to go to bed.

"So Chris's probably going to be off the road for a while then, huh?" Paul asked, changing the subject as he neared the top. Stephanie jogged up the steps behind him after turning off the lights on the main floor.

"Interestingly enough, no." She said. Paul let the suitcase drop as he whipped around to face her. "And how many times do I have to tell you not to just fling my suitcase around?"

Her question went unanswered. "He's coming back to work already?" he asked in disbelief. Stephanie shrugged again.

"It's what he wants to do, Paul. It's not like I have any say over what he does and doesn't do." She told him, moving past him into the bedroom to start unpacking her things.

"Like hell you don't." He said, following her. "Get your dad to tell him to stay home."

"Why are you so against him coming back?" She asked him, staring him down.

"His wife just died, Stephanie! And he's got a newborn son that he doesn't have a clue what to do with! His mind is not going to be in that ring. He will put every single wrestler he competes with in danger." Paul said.

"Chris will not put anyone in danger. He's got his head in the right place." Stephanie defended. "And he's doing really well with Ash."

"How the hell is he planning on travelling with a baby?" Paul countered, his voice rising. Stephanie looked at him severely for a moment, wondering if they were really going to have a fight about Chris's decision to come back to work.

"The same way we got him home from the hospital, Paul. In a car seat." She snapped at him. "I don't know why you're getting so fired up about this anyway, it was **his** decision to make. If he wants to come back to work, then he can come back to work. If he wants to bring Ash along, he can do that too, so long as someone's watching him."

"Who in the world is going to watch him backstage? It's not like we have baby sitters on staff!" Paul shouted at her.

"I'm going to watch him!" She shouted back. Paul took a step back.

"You're going to take care of his kid while he's on the road? As in taking care of him here?" He asked her. "Of all of the stupid ideas-"

"I won't be taking care of him _here_, Paul. I'll watch him while Chris has his matches - I'm going back on the road. I'm going to be the new GM of RAW." She interrupted him. Paul threw his hands up in the air and turned away from her to pace for a minute to keep calm.

"You decided to go back on television without talking about it with me?" He asked her, his back still turned to her.

"I wasn't aware that I needed your permission to do something in _my father's_ company." She told him. Paul turned and glared at her. She didn't back down.

"If you wanted to go back to being a GM, why didn't you pick Smackdown? That's the brand that needs the GM more than RAW." He said to her.

"Chris is going to need my help and he's on RAW." She told him firmly.

"And what about me, Stephanie? Hm? What about when _**I**_ need you? After all, I am your husband, or does that not rank higher than the 'best friend' status?" He asked her, barely containing his anger. She pointed a finger at him.

"Oh no, don't you _even_ start this crap again." She threatened. "Chris is my friend who, as you pointed out earlier, just lost his wife and has to deal with a newborn. His parents are dead. His dead wife's parents are dead. Neither one of them had siblings. Who else is there for him right now, Paul?" She shouted. "Who else can he turn to when he needs someone other than his friends?"

"Exactly that – his friend_**s**_. Emphasis on the plural there. He doesn't need to run to **you** every time he needs something – he has other friends besides you." Paul pointed out. Stephanie scoffed.

"Yeah, and look at how many have been jumping to help him. They're waiting for him to ask for it, and Chris isn't going to ask for help."

"Well then that's his own damn problem!" Paul shouted. "Let him figure it out for himself. I need you to be here for me. Do you know what kind of week I've had? Of course you don't – you were in Florida with Chris the whole time, probably fucking each other's brains out as you planned his wife's funeral!" And with that comment, Stephanie slapped the taste out of Paul's mouth, but Paul was too enraged at this point to control himself.

He backhanded her across the face. Hard.

Stephanie stumbled back from the blow in shock, her back smacking the wall with a thud as she raised a hand to cover the spot that would likely have an enormous bruise on it tomorrow. She looked at Paul, who was staring at his hand, very much in shock himself. They remained that way for a few moments before Paul finally broke his trance and stormed out of the room, down the steps and outside. Only when she heard the front door shut did she allow herself to slide down the wall to the floor.

He hit her. He had actually hit her. Every other time they had argued had been just as bad as this one, sometimes resulting with her slapping him, but never _**ever**_ had he hit her back before. She pulled her knees to her chest as the tears that had welled up from the pain of his hit started to fall. She hated Paul in that moment – for having that power to make her cry. Chris had snapped at her more than once before in the heat of the moment, but no matter how nasty the comment, he had never reduced her to tears and at least had the decency to apologize as soon as the words left his mouth and he saw the sting they produced.

But Paul wasn't like Chris. And that fact made her tears flow faster.

God, how she wanted to call Chris and tell him what had just happened. But she was suddenly afraid to. Afraid that Chris would go ballistic and fly up here to beat Paul himself. Afraid to tell him and give him one more thing to be worried and stressed about. She wanted to be part of his solution, not part of his problem. She determined she would keep it to herself. She would not let him or anyone else know what had transpired here. She couldn't help but hear her father's voice in her head saying that she was a McMahon, damn it, and McMahons handled their problems face on.

But she chose to ignore it for now.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Sorry for being a little late with this chapter - I had a few unseen incidents to deal with yesterday and just didn't get around to it. Hopefully the wait will be worth it to you! Thanks again to SmoochyAddict and Nina (DCFanatic4Life) for your wonderful reviews, keep 'em coming! To everyone else reading, join in! Let me know what you think!**

Chris was fighting to get the car seat out of his rental when Stephanie got to the arena. She could tell he was barely containing fury at the offending piece, probably wanting to yank it out from the car violently and be done with it, but Ash appeared to be sleeping in it so his range of motion was limited. She put her car in park, quickly glancing in the mirror to make sure the bruise on her face was still well covered. She'd spent more than twenty minutes trying to make that thing look invisible. She knew that if she went to the makeup artists that they'd be able to do it in just a few seconds, but she really didn't feel like trying to explain how she'd gotten it, so that left doing it herself. Steph grabbed her things and climbed out of the car to walk over to Chris, whom she could hear muttering profanities under his breath.

"Need a hand with that?" She asked him, walking up behind him. He finished his last string of curses, wiped his forehead and turned to her.

"If you know some kind of magic trick to get this stupid thing out of the car without waking him up, be my guest." He said, stepping back and gesturing to the car. She stepped in front of him and started to work on getting the car seat free of the seat belt.

"So, General Manager, huh?" He asked her, watching her as she worked. "Who'd you have to suck up to in order to get that?" He joked. She poked her head out and stuck her tongue out at him. Two seconds later, she let the seat belt slide back into place and pulled the car seat free. Chris let his mouth hang open.

"How in the hell did you just do that?" He asked her.

"Helps when you unbuckle the seat belt first." She told him, barely containing a smile.

"Yeah," he agreed sheepishly, embarrassed at his own stupidity. "I suppose it would." She held the car seat out to him and he took it, thanking her as she absently tucked a piece of hair behind her ear.

"How'd that happen?" He asked her. She froze for a second.

"How'd what happen?" She asked.

"This, right here on your cheek." He said, briefly touching the bruise she'd worked so hard to conceal. "It almost looks bruised right there." For a moment, Stephanie panicked, not sure what she was going to tell him. She wondered who in the hell she was kidding, trying to keep something like this from Chris – the man had an eagle eye for detail and was perceptive about damn near everything. She forced herself to swallow and thought briefly about just telling him the truth, but her mouth was faster than her brain.

"Oh." She said, lightly touching the same spot on her cheek where his fingers had just brushed. "Yeah, that's nothing. Just me being clumsy, I'm afraid." She said, bending down to pick up the bags she'd set down. "I was trying to get something out of the top of the closet without getting the step ladder and when I pulled what I wanted down, one of those stupid plastic tubs came down at the same time and smacked me in the face." She lied, finally daring to look back at him. He seemed to be considering her answer, and for a brief second she wished that he would blatantly call her a liar and demand to know what really happened. But in her heart, she knew Chris saw her as many things, and a liar wasn't one of them.

"Would it really have been that hard to go and get a ladder?" He asked, touching the bruise one more time. "I mean, seriously Steph, if that tub would have hit you a few inches to your left, you could've had your nose broken." She nodded, looking back down and letting out a breath she didn't realize she was holding. She suddenly felt tears start to well in her eyes for lying to him when she knew he cared about her so much. He shut the door to his car and locked it before walking back over to her so they could enter the arena.

"You wanna tell me what's started your water works, or am I gonna have to guess?" Chris asked her suspiciously. She opened her mouth to say something when one of the tech guys wandered outside.

"Ms. McMahon, we need you in the arena – your father sent for a change in tonight's lineup." He said. Stephanie nodded and looked back at Chris.

"I'm fine." She told him, starting to walk into the arena with him following. "Things with Paul have just been…rougher than normal. We've been arguing a lot." He set his jaw and said nothing. "I was trying to talk to him about us starting a family and he blew me off."

"You've been thinking about starting a family?" He asked her.

"Well, _**I**_ have. Paul didn't want to discuss it at all." She said, shrugging. "I don't know. I guess seeing Ash sleeping in his car seat, looking so adorable…it's just making me emotional." Chris stopped her and put a hand on her shoulder, looking at her.

"Are you _sure_ that's all?" He asked. This was it. This was her chance to turn around and renounce everything she had just said and tell him the truth of why she was upset. It was the best opportunity she'd had, and she was about to take it.

"Hey Steph, there you are!" Paul said, walking up to them.

"Paul, what are you doing here?" She asked him as Chris's hand fell from her shoulder. She hoped he didn't notice the way she had tensed. Paul smiled a smile as fake as her story.

"Your dad thought it was time for me to switch shows again." He said, hugging her as he neared. She didn't hug him back.

"You're…on RAW now?" She asked, trying to ignore the way her heart was sinking farther into her chest. He nodded as he let her go.

"Looks like we'll be seeing a little more of each other finally." Paul said, before turning to Chris, extending his hand. "Good to see you back Chris, although I'll admit, I'm a little surprised that you'd want to come back so soon." Chris shook his hand without taking his eyes off of him and shrugged.

"Not much else for me to do. Other than keep track of the little guy here." He said, gesturing to the car seat in his hand. Paul looked in on the sleeping infant and nodded.

"Cute kid." He commented. Chris turned to Stephanie, who looked like she wasn't quite paying attention to what was being said.

"Well, I guess I'd better be moving on." Chris said to Stephanie. "Gotta go find the rest of the guys and see if one of them wouldn't mind watching Ash for my match later."

"Let me know if you can't find anyone." She said to him. He nodded and started off in the opposite direction. Once he had rounded the corner, Stephanie turned to glare at Paul, putting some distance between them.

"I thought I told you I didn't want to see you right now." She told him, through gritted teeth.

"Well, I can't control your father's actions." Paul said.

"Well I'm still sure you had something to do with it." She snapped at him before spinning on her heel and walking towards her office.

"Considering you've barely said two words to me these last few days, can you blame me for taking a few extreme measures?" She stopped in front of her door and whirled to face him, eyes glaring at him like lasers.

"Yes, I _can_ _**blame**_ you because it is **your** fault that we're not speaking to begin with!" She hissed. "If you could just learn to control your temper a little bit-"

"That's a street that runs two ways, Steph." He said to her, cutting her off. "You lay into me just as much." She took a deep breath and set her jaw. As much as she didn't want to admit it, he was right. She was just as easily fired up as he was.

"What you said to me was wrong and what you did afterwards inexcusable." She told him.

"I'm sorry about what I did." He said to her. "_Really_. I'd take it back if I could." Stephanie sighed.

"You **know** that Chris is my friend. You **know** that we spend a lot of time together and you **know** what he's up against right now. Think about all of the times that you have up and left in the middle of the night to go help Shawn with something. How many times did I say anything to you about it?" She asked. "How many times did I bring up my needs and try to place them above his?" Paul looked down for a moment.

"You didn't." He said quietly. "You never said anything to me about spending time with Shawn." Stephanie nodded.

"Yes, because _I trusted you_." She said. "You and Shawn were friends and I never wanted to put myself between that. Even though you went to all different kinds of places that I never approved of, I didn't say anything to you about it, because _I trusted you_, Paul. I wish you could do the same for me without asking for anything in return." She said, before walking into her office and leaving him in the hallway.

"Okay, let's switch to camera six for a second and then we'll get ready for the next match." Stephanie said, taking the headset off and walking out of the booth for a second. Chris was standing at the gorilla position, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"Are you sure you can do this?" She asked him. He turned to look at her, smirking.

"You act like I've been away for a few _years_ instead of a week and a half." He commented.

"A lot's happened in a week." She told him. "I need to make sure you've got it all straight up here." She said, poking him in the forehead. He brushed her off and smiled.

"I know what I'm doing, Stephanie." He promised. "Did you and Paul kind of talk things out earlier? You seem to be a little better than before." He asked as Adam's music hit. She shrugged.

"We talked, yes, but how much of it got through is another thing." She told him.

"Well, you know if he ever hurt you, I'd break both his legs." Chris said, looking straight at her. Stephanie couldn't tell if he was joking or serious and she didn't have the time to ask because his countdown started. She walked back over to put her headset back on and watch from the back.

Not ten minutes later, she was following Adam rushing to the trainer's office with Chris's left arm draped over her neck and his right arm draped over the referee's.

"It's nothing." Chris said, trying to push them away. "Just took a little bump wrong." Stephanie looked over at him, wincing at the blood running down his face and had to disagree. Adam pushed the door open for them and they managed to get Chris inside and laying down so the trainer could examine him. Stephanie turned to Adam.

"What the hell was that out there?" She demanded. "What were you thinking setting up a spear near the ring steps?"

"I thought we were going to miss them." Adam admitted. "I'm sorry. I made a mistake." Stephanie wanted nothing more than to completely rip into him at that moment, but she had other things concerning her. She simply told Adam to go get cleaned up before she turned back to look after Chris.

"Well, it doesn't look like there was any permanent damage done." The trainer concluded. "I think you've got a slight concussion, but your memory and motor skills are excellent. You're gonna need a fair amount of stitches here in a second, but other than that, I think you're fine. Nothing to be worried about." Chris lowered the towel he'd been given to mop his face off with and made a face at Stephanie.

"See? Told you it was nothing." He said to her.

"Well it has been said you have a hard head." She told him, letting a small smile cross her features. "I'm glad you're all right. I've got to-" She trailed off as the sound of a crying baby started to echo in the hallway. Chris looked up at her as the door opened and Jay rushed in, Ash screaming in his arms.

"I can't get him to stop crying!" Jay said, nearly hysterical himself. Chris tried not to laugh as he started to stretch his arms out to take Ash from him, but realized he still had quite a bit of blood on them. Stephanie had him covered once again though, washing off the one arm she'd used to wrap around Chris and then quickly taking Ash and the diaper bag from Jay, who disappeared back into the hallway. Stephanie started to rock him and tried to calm him by talking to him in that mother-like voice that all women seem to possess at the right time.

"He's probably hungry." Chris said as the trainer started to stitch him up. Stephanie tried feeing him, but when Ash just continued to cry, Chris motioned for her to let him hold him, after the trainer had let him wash his arms a little. Stephanie passed Ash to Chris, and watched as Chris started to calm his son down even as he was getting stitches put in his head.

"Now who has the magic tricks?" She teased him. He looked up at her, humor gone from his face, replaced by a very somber expression.

"I don't know how to explain it." He said to her. "He _knows_ the second I leave the room. I could have him sleeping soundly and just step out to go to the bathroom, and he just knows that I'm gone. As soon as I leave the room, he starts to get upset. I heard him start to cry when I left to come out for my match. I've read that babies aren't supposed to know that kind of stuff until they're a few months old." Chris looked back down at Ash. "It's like he knows I'm all he's got in this world." The trainer finished his stitching and left for a few seconds, letting silence fill the room.

"So you want to get yourself into this whole having kids mess too, huh?" He asked her. She smirked.

"Someday maybe." She said. "With Paul being so career-oriented-"

"And focused on himself." Chris interrupted. Stephanie nodded.

"I don't see it happening anytime soon." She admitted. Chris looked at her and nodded.

"You'd be great at it." He told her sincerely. "I mean, you're about the closest thing Ash has to a mom right now and you do great with him." Another random tech popped his head into the trainer's.

"Sorry to interrupt, but we need you at gorilla Stephanie." The tech said. Stephanie nodded.

"Duty calls." She said, shrugging, starting to walk towards the door.

"You know you can talk to me about stuff, right Steph?" Chris asked her suddenly. "I mean, I know that I'm juggling a few different things right now and you're probably more worried about me than yourself, but you know you can still come to me if something's really bothering you, right?" Stephanie stared at the door for a second before turning back to him, the tears welling up again.

"Yeah, I know." She said. "But I'm fine." She lied.

Chris was still pondering her words later as he was feeding Ash in the hotel room chair. Something just seemed kind of…off about her whole demeanor tonight, but he wasn't sure what to do about it. He knew that Stephanie liked to handle her problems herself, but she usually at least talked to him about things that were upsetting her. Not that he doubted her story about the conversation with Paul – he believed that one was very much true. He'd known Paul for a long time – longer than Stephanie – and he knew what kind of self-absorbed douche Paul could be. He never could understand what Stephanie saw in him, but she apparently saw something since she defended him most of the time. No, it wasn't that part he doubted. It was the part where she started to get teary eyed after telling him a story about how she got a bruise on her face.

He didn't really believe her story about the closet, even though it was relatively feasible. He himself had nearly been smacked in the face by falling objects while trying to get something out of Ash's closet the other day when he was packing. Something about it just felt wrong to him, but he wasn't going to push it. He knew she would come to him when she was ready to talk to him about it. She always did.

Thanks to the headache he currently had, he was also rolling over his decision to remain on the roster at the moment. Although he'd never admit it to anyone - taking the spear and smacking his head against the steps had shaken him up a little. He hadn't worried about it too much at first, until he started to feel all the blood running down his face. He had panicked then, wondering what Ash would do if he was suddenly struck down in a match, injured or worse. He realized how much he hadn't thought this whole thing through in his haste to get out of his house and away from the suffocating memories of his wife.

Once Ash was finished, he burped him and laid him down on the spare bed in the hotel room, surrounded by pillows to keep him from rolling off. Chris lay down in the other bed, watching him sleep for a few minutes before leaning back against the pillows. He ran a hand over the stitches in his head for a moment before closing his eyes, falling quickly into dreamland himself.

_Jessica was standing on the beach behind their house, just out of reach of the tide as it washed in. She was dressed in a simple white gown that was flowing in the wind along with her long, blonde hair. Her back was turned to him as she stared out at the ocean surrounding her and in that moment he thought she had never looked more beautiful. He had his hands stuffed in the pockets of his tan cargo shorts with his white button down shirt hanging open as he walked up to her. He placed a hand on her right shoulder and a light kiss on her left. She smiled at him, wrapping her left arm up to cup the side of his face._

"_It's beautiful isn't it?" She asked, looking out to the sunset. _

"_Sure is." He said, not even glancing at it – he only had eyes for her. She laughed at him and smacked his chest lightly. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her to him._

"_Don't you wish we could just live forever?" She asked him. "Without a worry or a care in the world?" He shrugged._

"_I don't know if I'd want to live __**forever**__, it'd probably be pretty boring." He said. "But it'd be nice to not ever have to worry about anything." He admitted. She chuckled lightly and turned around to kiss him. But as her lips touched his, she felt cold – freezing in fact. He wrinkled his brow and pushed away from her, only to realize that she was no longer standing on the beach in her white gown. Now she was laying on a table in the morgue, with all of the color drained from her face. He stumbled backwards in horror and knocked open one of the drawers where the other bodies were held. As he struggled back to his feet, he noticed Ash was laying on it, his face blue as if he had choked to death. He wanted to scream._

"_Oh God, no…" He managed to mumble, reaching out to Ash, but pulling his hands back a second later. Tears blurred his vision, but he noticed from the corner of his eye that Jessica was standing off to the side of him now. Jessica turned her head to look at him._

"_I want you to know that baby Irvine and I love you more than anything in the world." She said. Without warning she shot up and wrapped her hands around his neck to strangle him._

Chris jolted himself awake, his hands flying to his neck to free himself from the corpse's grasp. He was drenched in sweat and trembling, his breath coming in short gasps. He didn't stay sitting for long, though. He flipped on the lamp as he jumped out of bed to check on Ash. He gently placed a hand on the boy's back and leaned down to make sure he was breathing okay. When he was satisfied that Ash was fine, he let himself fall to the floor between the two beds and his hands started to shake. He tried to calm himself down, telling himself it was just a dream and that he was fine. Ash was fine, there was nothing to worry about.

But he _did_ have things to worry about. He had plenty of them. Many of which he was conveniently turning his back on at the moment. Most of which he never wanted to do, at least alone. He slowly brought his trembling hands to his face and did the only thing he could at the moment.

He wept.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Woo hoo! Four reviews this time! Thanks to SmoochyAddict, TakingBackMaria, madmanster, and Nina (DCFanatic4Life) who is apparently Paradigm's PR person over on Twitter! Thanks very much to those who also favorited this story! I really appreciate it. I hope this chapter will be enough to quench your thirst for now. I had a little bit of mental block to work around with this chapter, so hopefully it turned out okay!**

Stephanie sat out on the deck of her house in a robe, sipping her cup of coffee and watching as the sun came up. It was already her third cup this morning, since she hadn't really gone to sleep last night. How could she, with Paul in the same bed? For the life of her she couldn't figure out why she had taken him back, and she knew that was probably not a good sign for their relationship. She couldn't find a way to justify it to herself, other than the fact that she had never quit anything in her life – except for ballet class when she was four, but that was simply because she had broken her ankle and didn't have much of a choice. She wasn't going to give up on her marriage. At least not yet. She'd given him a second chance and promised him (and herself) that if he ever pulled a stunt like that again, that she would walk out on him and not think twice about it. But that wasn't entirely what had kept her up last night.

What kept her up was Chris.

Paul had talked to her and made his point very calmly about how Chris had gotten injured in his first match back on national television. Which wasn't something to take lightly, since Chris never got injured. Stephanie had tried to point out to him that it wasn't Chris's fault – it was Adam's for misjudging the distance and Paul had shrugged. The seed had been planted though, and she continued to mull over it. She wanted Chris to be on the road with her, if only to keep track of him and help him out, but she didn't want him to be there if he didn't have his head in the game. He could wind up injuring himself or someone else and then there would be a whole different can of worms to sort through.

But she also knew that sending him home with a six month vacation would kill him. The whole reason he wanted to come back so soon was because he couldn't stand to be surrounded by all of the things that reminded him of Jessica. Stephanie knew that he was going to have to face it sooner or later, if he ever wanted to live in that house, but the fact was that the wound was still fresh to him. Plus, there was Ash to think about. People were going to start getting aggravated about having to watch a child while they're preparing for their match, not to mention the effect all of the moving around and constant travelling was having on him. She was worried about his well-being.

"No wonder Chris always looks so tired." She mumbled to herself. She thought back to their conversation in the trainer's room where he had asked her if she was sure she wanted to get herself into this kind of a mess too. Thinking about all of this was making her wonder if she was really ready to have kids. Paul's hands started to massage her shoulders and she leaned back.

"What are you doing out here so early?" He asked her, placing a kiss on the top of her head.

"Thinking." She remarked.

"About what?" He asked her. She sighed.

"About Chris." She told him. "About whether or not to keep him on the roster." She could almost feel Paul nodding, trying to hide the smile. She knew that Paul didn't want Chris on the roster just because he didn't really care for the guy. Which was fine, because she knew Chris didn't care for Paul much either. She knew that both of them tolerated the other because she refused to pick between them.

"Maybe you should talk to him about it." Paul suggested as Stephanie sipped her coffee once more. Her cell phone started to ring at that and she wrinkled her brow at who would be calling at such an early hour. She checked the caller id to see it was Chris and turned to look at Paul.

"It's him. Mind if I take this alone?" She asked him. Paul nodded, kissed her, and walked back inside before she flipped it open.

"Hello?" She asked, immediately having to set her coffee down and plug her other ear.

"Stephanie?" Chris asked her.

"Chris, where are you? I can barely hear you." She said to him.

"I'm outside the-" Static cut in "room."

"You're outside where?"

"The emergency room." He repeated, louder this time. Stephanie felt her stomach plummet through the floor.

"Why are you at the emergency room?" She asked him, afraid to know the answer.

"Ash came down with something, he's not keeping anything down and he hasn't really slept for a while. I didn't know what else to do."

"Is he okay?" She asked him.

"He will be. They think he just caught a little virus." He said to her. "Look Stephanie, I know this isn't really the best time to do this, but I've been doing a lot of thinking the past couple of days. I think I'm gonna take that extended vacation after all. You were right about me rushing back into things too much. I just can't handle travelling with him and trying to wrestle…I can do this week's RAW if you want me to tie up anything, but after that, I think I just need to be home for a while." Stephanie was silent. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Here she had been up all night, thinking about whether or not she wanted him to take the time off and he was making the decision for her. She was glad that he was thinking about Ash and his well-being, but in the same regard she felt…disappointed for some reason.

"Stephanie?" He asked.

"Yes, I heard you." She said. He paused.

"Are you okay with that?" He asked her. She hesitated again. This was why it had taken her so long to think this through. She wanted to be near him to help him, but the only way she could do that without completely ignoring Paul was if they were all on the road together. But, she also wanted him to make the choice that was best for Ash, even if it meant not seeing them very much. She felt like she was abandoning him somehow.

"Stephanie?" He asked again. "Are you there?"

"Yes, I'm here, and I don't think that should be a problem, Chris." She heard herself say. "We can work out the details later."

"Thanks Stephanie, I gotta go."He said before they said their goodbyes and hung up. Paul opened the patio door when he saw her close her phone and leaned out.

"What did he want?" Paul asked her. Stephanie picked up her coffee again.

"He's taking the time off." She said simply. She could tell Paul wanted to ask her more about it, but simply chose to remain silent. She heard him close the door behind her, leaving her to her thoughts once more.

The silence that shrouded the house as Chris walked in was deafening.

Ash was sleeping in his car seat from the medicine he'd been given as Chris hauled him inside, where he was bombarded by all of the pictures and memories that he'd been hiding from for the past week or so. But there would be no more hiding now. He had convinced himself and Stephanie that getting off the road was the right thing to do for Ash's health and his sanity and she had been more than generous with the amount of time she gave him. He set Ash down on the counter and flipped through the mail for a few seconds before just taking a deep breath and looking around.

He was going to have to take all of this down, he realized. Maybe not everything, but a vast majority of it was going to have to go in order for him to have peace of mind in the next six months while he was home. He knew he could continue to wait and just do it when the wounds had healed a little more and when he wasn't having nightmares about his dead wife trying to strangle him, but he thought maybe he could influence those things to go away faster if he just went ahead and boxed up some of Jessica's things now. And if he was serious about doing it, he figured their room…_his_ room was as good a place as any to start.

He gently lifted Ash from the car seat and carried him up the steps to place him in his crib. Instead of leaving the crib in Ash's room though, he dragged it into his room to keep him near. He stood at the foot of the queen size bed and stared at the closet doors. He took a moment to compose himself, to brace himself against the wave he knew was coming before swinging the closet doors open. It was a decent sized, walk-in closet with his clothes lining the left side and hers lining the right. He had only been in there a few times since her death – both times as quickly as possible to get what he needed and get back out.

This time, he stepped in slowly, running his hands along all of her clothes as he walked to the back of the closet. Some of her stuff was already boxed up because she'd always had more clothes than space to hang them. She would constantly be rotating clothes in and out of the boxes in addition to buying new ones. His wife had been a pack rat to the extreme, always hanging on to everything "just in case." He sighed. He didn't even know where to move this stuff; he just knew he wanted it out of sight. He crept down to the kitchen to get a roll of garbage bags before sneaking back up the steps. He checked on Ash for a few seconds before walking into the closet again.

He pulled a bag open and started to peel her clothes from the hangers. He let them fall in, one after the other, trying to ignore the way they smelled like her and how he could remember certain times she wore them. He threw every last one of them into a bag and tied them off to sit in the back of the closet next to the boxes. Once that was done, he went over and sat on her side of the bed, pulling open the small drawer in the nightstand. He had to do a double take as he opened it.

There was a journal sitting on top of all of the other things she normally kept in there, one he'd never seen before. He wrinkled his brow and lifted it out, running his hands over the cover. He flipped it open and thumbed through the pages for a second, not really reading anything, just curious to know how much was written. The journal was nearly filled with her handwriting – full pages, front and back, each entry dated. He flipped back to the beginning where a small, folded piece of paper was stuck into the binding. His name was written on it. He pulled the piece of paper and slowly unfolded it to read the message she'd left for him.

_Chris,_

_I'm sorry for never telling you any of this._

_Please forgive me._

_-J_

Never telling him any of what? He wondered. He paused before turning the first page, wondering what kind of secrets he would find locked away in these pages and if he really even wanted to know them. He told himself that she was dead – what good would it do him to know about it now? But on the other hand, why would she leave him a note in the front cover apologizing for never telling him about it? Why would she leave a note like that when she was still alive unless… Chris's heart started to sink.

Why would she leave him a note like that unless she knew she was going to die?

He flipped the page.

_July 16_

_After three years, it's finally come back, and this time I don't think I'm going to be able to beat it. Dr. Redding told me today that my cancer that had previously been in remission has not only returned, but spread. The outlook isn't promising. Being pregnant has limited my choices for treatment. Chemotherapy and radiation are out for fear of endangering the baby. Doc said I could elect to have surgery to remove some of it, but it isn't a very thorough solution and I didn't feel comfortable putting the baby through that either. _

_The good news is that the cancer doesn't seem to be affecting the baby and is, for some reason, completely avoiding that area as it spreads. The bad news is, even if everything goes smooth with the birth and treatment gets started immediately afterwards…I'll be lucky to see his first birthday._

Chris stopped reading, his head making the room spin from trying to process everything.

Her cancer had come back. It had come back and she hadn't said a word to him. She had found out and kept it from him, knowing full well that she would likely be dead within a year while he went idly on, doing his own things and spending not near enough time with her. He couldn't remember how many times he had wished for more time with her in this past week, now only to discover that she would have been taken from him soon regardless.

Despite his best efforts, he found himself getting angry with her. He couldn't believe that she had kept this from him. Didn't this concern him as well? Didn't he have a right to know that his wife was dying from cancer? But even if he knew, he argued, what would he have done? What would knowing have accomplished? Then they both would have been miserable thinking about it and how there was basically nothing they could do. But at least he would have been able to go through it with her and she wouldn't have had to tackle this alone.

His anger faded and shame replaced it. He was ashamed of himself for not realizing that she was sick. Ashamed that he hadn't paid more attention to her. Ashamed that his wife had the will to go through it alone when he should have been the dutiful husband and been by her side throughout. And what had he been doing while his wife was carrying his child and dying from cancer? He had been wrestling, playing in his rock band, going out to bars with the boys. Looking back on it, he didn't know how or why she put up with him for as long as she did.

He closed the journal and moved to set it on the nightstand when something else fell out from the pages and landed on the floor. He bent over to pick it up and realized it was a picture. Well, three pictures actually, all in a row like those ones you get from the mall. It was of the two of them – he even remembered when they were taken – when they were on their honeymoon. They'd wandered into a mall and Jessica had begged him to take a few with her, joking that she'd make it up to him later if he played along. So he did and (true to her word) she made it up to him.

He took a deep breath and put the picture back on top of the journal and walked over to pick Ash up from his crib, since he'd started to cry. Chris held onto him like he was a lifeline, holding him closely to his chest. There were no tears coming from his eyes this time. He felt numb. Numb to everything around him except where this little boy was concerned. And in a way, he was thankful. He was ready to move on from this weeping phase and get to the point where he felt like a normal human being again. The secret that Jessica's journal had revealed to him saddened him, that was true, and it had given him one more regret to add to his long list of them. But he wasn't going to dwell on it. He was going to keep moving, the same way he always had, with one foot in front of the other.

It was enough comfort for now, but it wouldn't be soon.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: I am so, so, SO sorry that it took me this long to get this chapter up. Been having a lot of family obligations this past week and school just started, but I'm hoping to keep on a semi-regular schedule of updating. Please be patient with me, I promise I won't let this story go unfinished! It might take me a while, but I promise to finish it! Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, or put this story on their favorites list - it really means a lot to me. I'm glad you're all enjoying it, hopefully this chapter was worth the wait! Enjoy!**

It was a week later before Stephanie saw Chris again. She had tried to make a way for Chris to come up to Connecticut to visit her, but things kept coming up that caused her to be out of the house and on the road so she could never give him a definite date on when to come. She'd been calling him every day to check up on him and on Ash, who was on the fast track to recovery, but closer and closer to the end of the week Chris was starting to sound sick himself. When he erupted into his third coughing fit in their fifteen minute conversation, she threatened that she was coming down to Florida to check up on him and he worried her a little when he didn't even offer up any resistance. Before she even had time to process what she was doing, she bought herself an airplane ticket and was on her way to Florida.

She guessed she should have discussed it with Paul first, but she told herself that she was an adult and he wasn't her mother. She told him where she was going, of course, but she didn't feel like he should get any say in whether or not she _**would**_ go. After all, he did the same things to her when Shawn had needed _his_ help - she was just repaying the favor. She called Chris when the plane landed and he told her to just let herself in when she got to his house, in case he didn't hear her knock.

"Chris?" She asked, setting her things down and walking into the living room. She was slightly taken aback at the state it was in. Furniture was moved haphazardly around the room, pictures were face down across the mantle, the entertainment center on the far wall had all of its doors open and tapes were stacked up in various piles all over the room. She wrinkled her brow and made her way upstairs.

"Chris?" She asked again, peeking into Ash's room to find it empty of all of the furniture. Her worry line deepened and she continued into Chris's room.

Ash's crib and the rocking chair had now been moved in here with the rest of Chris's things. The closet doors were open and there were a few things strung out along with several large garbage bags that were packed full. She noticed the bathroom door was closed in here before quickly walking over to the crib and looking in on Ash, who was babbling happily. She smiled at him, picking him up as she looked around the room once more. Chris was generally a neat person, so she couldn't understand why he would leave his house in such a state of disarray like this. But, as she stared at the things that were missing from her surroundings, she started to realize what he was doing. Before she had time to process any more, the bathroom door opened and Chris emerged.

He looked horrible. He was paler than she had seen him in a long time, and the dark circles that had been under his eyes were becoming more pronounced. He hadn't shaved in a couple of days so he was starting to get a decent amount of growth on his face. He smiled faintly at her when he saw her, but she could tell he was miserable.

"Hey Steph, I didn't hear you come in." He told her, walking over to her slowly.

"Good Lord, Chris, how long have you looked like this?" She asked him, putting her hand to his forehead to gauge if he had a fever or not. She was guessing he did from how warm he felt.

"My whole life." He quipped, smirking slightly when she gave him a look.

"That's not what I meant." She scolded him. He held his hands up in surrender.

"I know what you meant. Honestly, I didn't even really feel too sick until this morning." He told her, walking over to sit on his bed. "I think I might have caught what Ash had, in which case, I'm in for nice couple of days." He closed his eyes for a few moments, resting his head in his hands. "I hope I don't get you sick." He said before erupting into a coughing fit. She waved him off as she continued to rock Ash.

"Don't worry about it." She told him. "I'd have been here sooner if I'd known how bad you were feeling." She continued to study him as she set Ash back in his crib. She couldn't get over how bad he looked. There was no way he _just_ started to feel sick today. She wondered how long he had been sick before developing the cough that warned her.

"Stop analyzing me." He mumbled, not opening his eyes.

"It's kind of hard not to." She told him, that condescending tone still in her voice. She sat down on the bed next to him. "You look horrible, Chris."

"Thanks for the compliment." He said drily.

"Have you not been taking care of yourself?" She asked him.

"Actually, I've been working on a new diet plan. Something akin to being bulimic." He told her, opening his eyes. She gave him that look again and he sighed. "I've just been sick, Steph. I most likely got it from Ash. What do you want me to say?" He asked her tiredly. She said nothing and looked around at his room once more.

"I see you've been…redecorating." She commented. He followed her gaze and nodded.

"Couldn't stand being here surrounded by all of her things." He told her. "I suppose that makes me a horrible person, for wanting to cover her up so soon, but I don't know how else to do it. Especially after I read the first part of her journal." Stephanie turned back to look at him, an eyebrow raised.

"Journal?" She asked him. "Jessica didn't seem like the type to keep a journal." She commented. Not that Jessica didn't have thoughts worthy of keeping a journal, it's just that Stephanie always thought of Jessica as the type of woman who liked to keep busy, not spend her time writing about what happened in her day.

Chris reached across the bed and grabbed the black journal that was resting on the nightstand and handed it to her.

"Did you read it?" She asked him. He shook his head.

"I only read the first page." He told her as she examined the cover. "After that, I didn't feel like reading much else. I keep moving it around, as if I might read it later, but I don't think I will."

"What did she say?" She asked, setting the book back on the bed next to him.

"That even if she had lived giving birth to Ash, she'd have been dead within the next year anyway." He said. Stephanie felt her stomach drop.

"_What_? Why?"

"Her cancer was spreading." He said. She gaped at him.

"Her cancer came back and you didn't even tell me?" She demanded.

"Don't feel out of the loop – she didn't even tell me." He said, and she sat back for a second.

"She kept that from you?" She asked him. He nodded and closed his eyes again.

"She didn't see the point in telling me, I guess, since I would just be miserable the whole time, knowing that there was nothing I could do to help her. Knowing that she was going to die no matter what. She wrote me a note in the front, apologizing for not telling me any of it, but I guess I understand her reasoning." He told her. "What gets me the most is that I _didn't even know_ that something was wrong." He confessed. "I never once knew that anything was up. She never let on that anything was bothering her. Never acted like she was sick. I never knew that my wife was keeping the biggest secret of our lives from me, and that eats at me. I'm her husband. I'm supposed to know these kinds of things, you know?"

They sat there in silence for a few moments as Stephanie processed everything that Chris had just told her. She was completely dumbfounded. She didn't know what to tell Chris. She had no words of wisdom, nothing to share with him to make him feel better when he obviously was angry with himself for not seeing it, and angry with Jessica for not letting him share the burden with her. She knew how Chris was about these things and she knew that he was beating himself up about it. She remembered one time his mother calling and asking him to come up one weekend and he had to cancel last minute. When he called to cancel with her, it wound up being the last time he spoke to her. He'd never forgiven himself for it. That was just how Chris worked. Stephanie gripped his hand before pulling him into a hug, not caring if he made her sick later or not. At first, he made no move to hug her back, but then he let his head fall into her shoulder and wrapped his arms around her.

"Jessica was a wonderful person, Chris, and she was stronger than I can even imagine being." Stephanie started, unsure of where the words were coming from, but somehow knowing they were what he needed to hear. "But you're right, nothing is going to bring her back, and if removing these things from sight is how you need to move on, then I'm sure she knows that. I'm sure she wouldn't want you to sit around and mope about things that are already done. Things that can't be changed or fixed. She loved you and you loved her. Nothing will ever change that. Everything else is just background noise. She probably worked very hard to keep you from knowing because she wanted to keep seeing you happy for as long as she could. That was the image of you that she wanted to take with her. She didn't want to think of you in her final moments and think of the sad, upset version of you. She wanted the smiling version to reassure her that you would be together again someday." She pulled back a little bit to see his eyes had started to water, but he was fighting it. She tried to smile at him and he nodded at her.

"I know, I keep telling myself that, but it's just… it's hard, you know?" He said. She nodded. "I try to say that I'm over it, that I don't care anymore, but I do. I still feel as messed up and angry as I did the day she died. I just don't know how to get rid of it. I don't know how to shake the feeling. I'm trying everything I can think of to get her out of my head, to focus on Ash and try to keep myself busy, but I see her every time I close my eyes….Hell, I've even had nightmares about her." He admitted. "I thought maybe taking some of her stuff away would help, but I don't know…I don't know if it's helping at all. Plus, now I'm coming down with this stupid cold, virus, whatever the hell it is…" he took a deep breath. "I don't know what the hell to do anymore, Steph. I just wish there was someone who would tell me what to do, and when I would get over this, but there isn't. There's no one."

"There's me." She told him quietly, rubbing the back of his neck. He looked at her. "I may not have all the answers to your questions, but I can still tell you what to do." She reassured him. He snorted at her and she smiled. He let his hands slide down her arms.

"I know, but I hate always bothering you." He admitted. She shook her head at him.

"Don't." She told him. "If you need me, you tell me. Do you even remember how many times you've helped me with something?" She asked. "Don't you even worry about it." He turned away from her to cough again and she patted him on the back.

"Did you get yourself anything to eat for dinner?" She asked. He shook his head.

"Haven't been able to keep much of anything down today." He told her.

"Well, let's try to get something in you." She said.

"I love it when you talk dirty to me." He joked, his eyes sparkling briefly. She shook her head at him, ignoring him.

"Even if it is just crackers." She finished, standing up. He sighed and let her pull him to his feet. They both checked in on Ash before she went downstairs to get him some food.

"Look at him - all zonked out." Stephanie said to him as they stood over Ash's crib a few hours later. Chris was looking a little better, and he said earlier that he seemed to be feeling a little better as well, but she attributed that to him not being here by himself.

"I'm about to join him." Chris admitted, running a hand along the side of his face. "You didn't get a hotel room, did you?" He asked her. She shook her head.

"No, I remember the lecture you gave me last time about the hotel." She said, smiling at him. "I figured you might want some company in the night anyways – maybe I can take care of Ash while you get a full night's sleep."

"Steph, you know I can't let you do that." He told her. She gave him a look.

"How about switching on and off with me, then?" She countered. He held her look for a few minutes before finally giving up.

"Fine. I'll let you do that." He said. "You come get me if you need any help." He told her, grabbing a blanket and spreading it out on the floor.

"What are you doing?" She asked him. He grabbed one of his pillows from the bed and stopped to look at her.

"Making a pallet to sleep on. What's it look like?" He asked, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world what he was doing.

"Oh no you don't." She said to him, pulling the blanket back up off the floor. "You're sick, you're going to sleep in your own bed. I can take the floor."

"Not a chance." He argued. "You're my friend and my guest and I'll be damned if I'm gonna let you sleep on the floor." He grabbed the other end of the blanket to try and set it back down.

"Chris! Seriously, just let me have the blanket. I don't mind sleeping on the floor." She tried to reassure him.

"You're not sleeping on the floor." He insisted, pulling on the blanket. "It's non-negotiable." He looked at her seriously and she just had to laugh. She couldn't believe that they were…wait, she could believe that she and Chris were having an argument about who was going to sleep on the floor and who was going to sleep in the bed. It was Chris. These were the kind of arguments _they_ got into.

"Okay, how about this?" She asked him. "What if we share the bed?" He looked at her.

"Why Stephanie, I never knew you felt that way about me." Chris joked, chuckling when she popped him on the arm.

"You **know** what I mean, Chris!" She told him indignantly.

"Yes, I know." He said seriously. "You sure you're okay sharing a bed with me?"

"We're just going to sleep, Chris." She told him.

"Sleeping in the same bed as me can be dangerous." He warned her. "I tend to roll around." She rolled her eyes at him.

"I think I'll manage." She reassured him. "Besides, we've slept in the same room before already, remember Pittsburgh?" Chris did indeed remember Pittsburgh. The desk clerk at the hotel had screwed up his reservation and left him without a room. Stephanie happened to be passing through the lobby when he was arguing with the clerk when she offered for him to stay with her. Granted, the room had been a double so they'd had separate beds that night, but they had coexisted on at least one other occasion.

"Yeah, I remember. I remember twenty different people coming up to me later and asking me if we were sleeping together." He told her. She blushed and he had to laugh. This happened more than six years ago, before she married Paul, and she _still_ blushed when he told her he'd been asked if they were sleeping together. He shook his head lightly and threw the pillow back on the bed.

"I'll take the side with junior here." He told her. "He tends to snore." Stephanie shrugged.

"All right, sounds good." She said. Chris climbed into bed and she went into the bathroom to perform her nightly routine. By the time she came back out, he was already asleep. She smiled at him and placed a light kiss on his forehead before walking around to climb into bed on the opposite side.

She couldn't get herself to fall asleep though.

She kept rolling over the conversation in her head from earlier, where he had told her about Jessica's cancer and basically everything that was bothering him. She was touched that he had confided so much in her at the time, but laying here in bed she realized that there was no one else left for him to confide in. His parents were gone, his wife was gone, he had no siblings. He had plenty of friends, but none who had been through similar experiences and honestly, none that knew him as well as she did. She realized that she really was his only out.

And that's when the guilt started to seep in.

She had previously decided that she wasn't going to tell him about the instance with Paul, but now she was starting to feel guilty about _not_ telling him when he trusted her with so much. Chris Irvine was not an emotional man. He didn't shed tears on a daily basis, and to show such unguarded emotion around her showed her just how much he trusted her. She was getting to the point now where she wished that she had already told him, or that he would just call her out on it somehow, because if she would tell him what happened now he would get upset for not figuring it out and that would just add to his guilt about not noticing when things were wrong.

She let out a sigh as she rolled over to face Chris. She was surprised to see him wide awake, staring at her.

"Can't sleep?" He whispered. She shook her head. "Me either."

"You were sleeping when I came out of the bathroom." She told him. He shook his head this time.

"I was faking." He confessed. "Thanks for the kiss, by the way." She didn't know why she was embarrassed that he knew she kissed him, but she suddenly was.

"What are you thinking about?" He asked her.

"Who says I was thinking about anything?" She countered.

"I could hear you thinking from over here." He said, turning away to cough briefly. She let a few moments of silence pass between them.

"I'll tell you in the morning." She promised finally.

"Steph," He started to whine, but she shook her head.

"Tomorrow." She said. "We'll talk about it then. Otherwise you'll wind up staying up all night." He clearly wasn't pleased with the answer, but he let it pass.

"Fine. Good night Stephanie." He told her, patting her hand.

"Good night Chris." She said, before rolling back over to face the window. She sent up a quick prayer that he would forget about her promise by tomorrow and she could get away with it for a little longer, but if he didn't…well she prayed she had the courage to tell him, and that he wouldn't completely flip his lid when she told him. That he wouldn't try to kill Paul the next time he saw him. And that he wouldn't hate her for keeping it from him this long.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Still working on trying to get back to a normal updating routine, so please bear with me. A million thank yous to everyone who has been reviewing/favoriting/subscribing to this story! You keep me motivated to sit my butt down and work on this! Without further ado, I give you the next installment of _Paradigm_. Enjoy!**

_Jessica was standing in front of him, wearing that simple white dress again. Their hands were joined and she was smiling at him, looking as radiant as ever. He opened his mouth to say something, but she moved faster than he could register and placed a kiss on his lips instead. He felt his heart grow heavy, a part of him knowing that it was only a dream version of Jessica, not the real thing. He already missed her touch so much it hurt him and he'd only endured a month without her. He couldn't imagine the rest of his life without her…without __**someone**__… to feel this way about. _

_He ran his fingers through her hair, wrapping an arm around her waist to pull her closer and moaning lightly when their bodies collided. He felt himself die a little more with each second that passed between them, knowing that it wasn't real, but wanting to forget that fact so he could enjoy her one last time, even if it was only in his fantasy. Hell, she was already getting a rise out of him and they were just kissing. _

_They briefly broke off the kiss to gasp in some air and Jessica ran her hands up under his shirt. He closed his eyes and swallowed thickly as her hands started to roam lower before realizing her hands were turning colder the lower they went on him. He opened his eyes again to see that Jessica wasn't quite the beauty she had been a few moments ago. Her eyes had sunken in and he thought he caught a glimpse of something wiggling around by her ear. He tried to pull away from her in horror._

"_What's wrong, baby?" She purred, pulling him closer to kiss her decomposing face. Her hands had turned to ice and she had a vice like grip on his arm while the other fiddled with his belt. "Don't you still love me?" She asked, a bug crawling out of her mouth as she finished._

Chris jolted awake and sat up, trying to get his breathing under control. He knew he had been complaining about the dreams a lot lately, and maybe that was what made his subconscious come up with this dandy. He honestly had to say he preferred the one where she tried to kill him over this one. At least _that_ one didn't make him feel so sick to his stomach and…unfulfilled, although he couldn't say he was much in the mood anymore after that little show. After about a week of the same dream, he had started to get used to the pattern of it, where it was more so annoying than scary. This one…this one was just cruel.

Stephanie shifted in her sleep and reminded him that he wasn't in bed alone tonight. He closed his eyes and inwardly groaned, knowing he was going to have to go take a shower before he would be able to lay back down with Stephanie in the same bed. He didn't want her to get the wrong impression. Not to say that he didn't find Stephanie attractive, because he did – what red-blooded man wouldn't? He just didn't want to scare away the one friend he had managed to keep throughout this whole thing because of a dumb misunderstanding.

"Everything okay?" He heard her ask behind him, sleep still lining her voice. He turned his head, but kept his posture the same otherwise.

"Yeah, everything's fine." He told her. She sat up and scooted closer to look at his face. He shifted around a little, trying to make it look nonchalant, but also angling himself away from her to avoid suspicion.

"Are you sure? You seem like you're upset about something." She said, putting a hand on his shoulder. He waved her off.

"I'm fine, Steph, seriously." He said. "Just woke up feeling sick to my stomach and had to sit up for a little bit." She eyed him warily for a few moments and he shifted uncomfortably. Finally she moved her hand to his forehead. He leaned away from her as she did this.

"Well, I don't think you have a fever anymore, but you do still feel a little warm. And sweaty." She commented, wiping her hand on the sheet. "But since you're a little sweaty, I think you're just sleeping with too many covers on." Chris closed his eyes, catching all the wrong parts of what she said and trying to get a grip on his hormones. Damn that stupid dream. Damn his anatomy. Damn Stephanie and insisting on sleeping in the same bed…

But of course, thinking about that made him take one more mental step he wasn't ready to take. The uneasiness in the pit of his stomach because of the dream was starting to bubble up and increase tenfold because of the thoughts he was having about Stephanie in that moment. God, he was a horrible person, his wife wasn't in the ground a month and here he was thinking impure thoughts about his best friend.

Not that he would ever act on them, of course. She was a _married_ woman after all, not to mention his best friend and that was something he really didn't want to fuck up, pardoning the expression of course. Plus, there was the whole other point of, oh yeah, him still mourning Jessica and yet feeling married himself. No way in hell was he ready to move on to someone else. Which was why it didn't make sense to him to be having these sort of thoughts and feelings. He wasn't ready for it, so why was it front and center in his brain at the moment?

"Chris?" Stephanie voice filtered through his brain. She waved a hand in front of his face. "You in there?" He blinked a couple of times before looking at her. Her eyebrows were raised at him.

"Yeah…"he said, a little unsure. "Just kind of…wandered off there for a moment."

"I gathered as much." She commented. There was a moment of silence between them before she spoke again. "Are you sure you're okay?" He nodded.

"Just a little long winded up here," he said, pointing to his head. "I think I'm just gonna go take a shower and watch some TV for a while. Ash will want to be fed here soon anyways. You can go ahead and catch a little more shut eye, if you want." She stared at him for a little longer before finally nodding.

"I think I might take you up on that." She said. "Only if you promise to wake me up if you need my help with anything."

"I think I can handle it." He said and she nodded, laying back down and pulling the sheet up to her chin. When he was satisfied that she wasn't going to turn around suddenly, he stood up and checked on Ash briefly before continuing into the bathroom.

What had started out as mere confusion for him blew up into a full whirlwind of emotion when he closed the bathroom door. He desperately needed some sort of relief, but knew that thinking of Jessica was going to be counterproductive to that, after his dream. God knew it had gotten him through a couple of the long nights before this. But he didn't feel bad about that – she was his _wife_ after all.

Stephanie…Stephanie was a whole 'nother story.

Now that he had her in that frame of mind, he couldn't get her _out_. He turned on the shower, planning to just take a cold one and be done with it. Wouldn't be the first time and probably wouldn't be the last. But, his damn brain just kept insisting, kept _whispering _little things to him. Like how the shirt she chose to sleep in hugged her just right, the way her hair looked so sexy in that tousled state…

Chris clenched his fists and growled. This was **not** helping. He stripped down and stepped into the spray, sucking air in quickly as the cool water hit his body. He just stood there in the spray for a few moments, hoping that all of this ridiculousness would wash off of him and down the drain like everything else. He shivered for a few seconds before going about his normal shower routine, changing his thoughts instead to what Stephanie didn't tell him last night.

He had a hunch it had to do with how she _really_ got the bruises on her face, because he had decided the closet story was bullshit. It was convincing bullshit, he would give her credit where it was due, but it was still bullshit and he planned on calling her out on it if she refused to tell him today. He was done watching her skate around this. That was the kind of crap that other, less focused women did. They would dance around the topic of what was wrong unless the guy played 20 questions with them. Jessica had been known to do that a time or two when they were still dating. Finally, Chris hadn't been able to take the guessing game any longer and just told her to tell him what was wrong with her – point blank. Communication between them was much more effective after that point, which was something he had always appreciated.

Stephanie had been that way from the get-go, though. If she had a problem, she didn't like to mess around with it. She wanted to tackle it head on and move on to the next obstacle, so the fact that she was dancing around this one so much, shifting gears and changing topics, said volumes about what it was. It wasn't just a minor thing. He had a feeling he wasn't going to like what she would tell him.

Once he deemed himself calmed down and decent, he rinsed off before shutting off the faucet. Why was it he knew right away when something was wrong with Stephanie, but when his own wife was keeping secrets, he had absolutely no clue? Was it just because he knew Stephanie so well that he felt like he could read her like the back of his hand? That didn't make him feel any better, though. _Jessica_ should have been like that to him. He should have noticed. He should have picked up that _something_ was wrong. Knowing that he didn't, knowing that she kept it from him and he never realized, made him feel like a failure in the sincerest meaning of the word. No amount of reassurance from Stephanie, or anyone else for that matter, was going to make him think otherwise.

He had just finished drying off with the towel when he realized that in his haste to make it into the bathroom without being discovered, he forgot to bring clean clothes in there with him. He sighed and shook his head. Well, he supposed he'd be going commando for a little bit with the gym shorts he slept in. He threw his boxers in the laundry and pulled the gym shorts on, ignoring the strange sensation of just wearing gym shorts with nothing underneath. He walked back into the bedroom and noticed Ash was still sleeping just as soundly as he had been when he went in the bathroom. He had to say, he was expecting this whole parenting thing to be worse than what it had been. Apart from the first night and the one emergency room scare, Ash had been relatively easy to deal with thus far. He didn't quite sleep the whole night, but he was pretty damn close to it, which was surprising, based on everything that he had read about babies.

He looked over to Stephanie, who was stretched out on the bed, lightly snoring, and it brought a smile to his face. He started towards the closet when he heard a low buzzing sound coming from her side of the bed. Wrinkling his brow, he walked over closer to see the light from her phone, which had fallen to the floor. Apparently she'd set it on vibrate and forgot about it. He walked over to it, picking it up right as the buzzing stopped. He read Paul's name on the caller ID before it switched over to tell how many missed calls she had. He almost let his jaw drop when he read how many there were.

15 missed calls, it read.

Chris wondered if they were all from Paul, but didn't want to snoop around in her phone. Whoever was calling her really wanted her to answer the phone, apparently. He lightly touched her forearm and shook her.

"Steph." He whispered. She opened her eyes and started to sit up immediately.

"What is it?" She asked. "What's wrong?" He handed her cell phone to her.

"Your phone was ringing." He told her. "I think it was Paul." She pushed her hair behind her ears and took the phone from him, flipping it open to see the missed calls.

"Why the hell did he call me 15 times?" She mumbled. Chris looked at the alarm clock. It was still ridiculously early – four in the morning. Such was his sleeping schedule. Steph continued to scroll through her phone for a few seconds before throwing the covers off and getting up.

"I'm gonna call him back and see what he wants." She said to him as she walked past. "I don't want to wake Ash up, so I'll head down to the living room." Chris nodded and she continued downstairs to make her call. He had the urge to stand at the top of the steps and eavesdrop, but decided against it. Despite her intention of not waking Ash, he started to wake up on his own and Chris could tell the crying was about to begin, so he went over and quickly scooped him out of the crib.

"Hey big guy." He said softly. "Daddy's here, he didn't forget about you." He finished before realizing what woke his son up. He waved a hand in front of his face and scowled for a moment. "Good lord, kid." He muttered, carrying Ash into his room to put him on the changing table.

He had just finished changing him when Stephanie rushed past him. He picked Ash up and walked back towards the bedroom, almost smacking into Stephanie as she was rushing around to find him. She seemed to be in a state of panic.

"What's-" He started, but she cut him off.

"I have to leave." She said to him suddenly. "I need to get a flight back to Connecticut as soon as possible."

"Why? What's going on?" He asked her, she was already running around the room, picking up her things and trying to figure out where she'd left her suitcase. He grabbed her arm to stop her. "What's wrong?"

"My dad had a heart attack last night." She told him, clearly on the verge of losing it. "He's not in good shape. They don't know how much longer he's going to last." Tears were threatening to fall from her eyes. He wrapped his free arm around her to hug her. She tolerated it for a few seconds before whirling around to continue her packing.

"I've got to go. I've got to be there." She said, and he could tell from her voice that she had pulled away because the tears had started to fall. He stood there for a moment in silence before setting Ash back in his crib and gathering up a few of his own things.

"What are you doing?" She asked him. He looked up at her.

"Same thing you are – I'm packing." He told her. She gave him a quizzical look as he straightened up. "If you think I'm letting you get on a plane to Connecticut by yourself when your dad just had a heart attack, you're crazy." A lone tear rolled down her face as she weakly smiled at him in gratitude.

Three hours later they were sitting on the plane to take them to Connecticut. Stephanie was biting at her nails and fidgeting every three seconds while Chris was trying to keep Ash happy and entertained. He chanced a glance over at Stephanie, still mulling over whether or not he wanted to bring up their conversation from last night when she was already upset about Vince, when she caught him looking.

"What?" She asked him. "Is there something on my face?" He shook his head. "Why are you staring at me like that?" Well, he supposed now was as good a time as any.

"We never finished our conversation from last night." He told her, bouncing Ash on his knee. Something flickered on her face for a second…was it fear, or was he just seeing what his mind had already made up?

"No, we didn't." She ventured carefully. "Chris, I still don't think this is the best time to talk about this. I mean, I've got a lot on my plate right now-"

"That you can't do anything about for at least another hour and a half until the flight lands." He finished for her. "What else do you plan on doing for that amount of time besides just talking and worrying?" She took a deep breath.

"Chris, trust me on this one, it's just not the right time to talk about it."

"Because you don't want me to know." He said, looking at her seriously.

"No, that's not it." She started, but he shook his head.

"Yes it is." He said. "Otherwise, you would have just said it by now and we wouldn't be dancing around the subject. There's something you don't want to tell me about, but you're feeling guilty about keeping it from me." He continued. "Tell me I'm wrong." She didn't have to though, it was written all over her face that he had just hit the nail on the head. His bluff paid off.

"It's not that I don't _want_ you to know." She told him finally. "It's that I know how you're going to react once you do know, and I'm not sure either one of us can deal with it right now."

"So now you're telling me that if I want to get it out of you, I'm going to have to guess it and gauge the truth by your facial expressions." He said. Stephanie didn't like the way this conversation was heading.

"Chris, no, please. Let's not do this right now, okay?" She asked, but he ignored her. He was going to get the truth out of her one way or another.

"Three guesses." He bargained. "You give me three guesses, and if I don't get it by the third guess, I will let the subject drop."

"Fine." She deadpanned, turning to look out the window.

"You're pregnant." He ventured. She scoffed at him, shooting him a sideways glance before rolling her eyes.

"Yeah right." She commented. "Strike one."

"Okay," Chris said, looking to Ash for a few seconds to make a silly face as he thought. "You are…desperately in love with me because of our storylines together, but don't know how to tell Paul." He at least got a chuckle out of her with that, but she shook her head.

"Wrong again. Two strikes, junior. Better make the next guess a good one." She warned. Chris pretended to be contemplating his last guess.

"You are…" he paused, looking at her as she smirked at him, confident he wasn't going to guess correctly. For both of their sakes, he hoped he didn't and that this whole thing was just an elaborate conspiracy his mind made up.

"I'm waiting." She said in a sing-song voice.

"You are…lying about how you got the bruise on your face." He said, the humor slipping from his voice. In that moment, time seemed to come to a screeching halt. The flash of panic returned to her face for a brief second and her jaw dropped for just as short of a time. She was genuinely taken aback at the guess and he was dismayed to see it.

Sometimes, it was a real bitch being right.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Boy, the stars and planets must have aligned just right recently - my muses were working over time on this chapter! The words were flowing so well I was having a hard time finding a stopping point. Hopefully, you'll forgive the lengthy update. ;) Much love to those of you who shared a review with me - I appreciate your dedication! As always, I hope you enjoy the latest installment coming to you right now...**

Stephanie removed the look of shock from her face quickly, but she was already too late to keep it from him. Chris felt his stomach lurch and then sink lower, inciting a cocktail of emotions – none of which were very positive. The knee that he had been bouncing Ash on halted its motion and he moved Ash closer to him as he kept his steady gaze on Stephanie's face. He was very aware of the fact that every part about him seemed to be tensing up. Jessica had once commented to him that she could tell when he was angry before it even showed on his face because of the way he would suddenly be standing up straighter and more rigid than he normally did. He clenched his jaw.

"Wh-What makes you think that?" She asked him as time returned to its normal pace, her voice betraying her further, even though she looked away. He didn't speak immediately, his brain had started to make its threats and debate on how to handle the situation if what he thought had happened was true.

"You do." He said simply.

"Why would-" She started, turning her head back around to start arguing with him when he shook his head and cut her off.

"It was _just_ etched into your face, Stephanie." He told her, his voice rising a notch, but still well below the decibel it would have been if they hadn't been on an airplane at the moment. "Don't even bother denying it." She shut her mouth and a shameful look filled her features. Chris took a deep breath and looked at Ash for a moment, wiping the drool off of his chin as he tried to keep the burning feeling of rage tied down inside of him.

"How did it happen?" He asked her, his voice low. Stephanie closed her eyes – her biggest fear since Paul's hand had touched her cheek was being realized. More than ever, she wished she had never brought it up with him. God, if she told him…Paul was the one picking them up at the airport…Her stomach rolled and for a second, she thought she was going to lose the small breakfast Chris had convinced her to eat. When she opened her eyes again, he was staring at her once more, obviously waiting for her answer. Waiting for the truth. She swallowed and wet her lips before speaking.

"I was having an argument with Paul," She started, noticing how Chris not only _flinched_ at the mention of her husband's name, but also tightened his jaw and his grip on Ash. "Things just got a little out of hand." She said, shrugging and trying to make it seem like it wasn't anything major.

"_He_ _**hit**__ you_?" Chris asked, the anger seeping into his tone. She could almost _hear_ him thinking about all of the things he was going to do to Paul when he saw him again, and a fresh wave of nausea crashed over her.

"It was in the heat of the moment." She started quickly. "I slapped him for saying something stupid and he just… It was an accident."

"Is that your version or his?" He asked her. Stephanie started to wring her hands nervously. She could feel the tears welling up and she hated herself for letting this get so far out of her control. "Has he hit you since then?" Chris asked when she didn't answer his first, his tone seeming a mite more frantic this time. She shook her head vigorously and the knot that had formed in his throat loosened a little.

"No. We spent the first week after the argument apart." She said, a tear slipping through. She wiped it from her face and cleared her throat. "He's been a completely different person since then. He's been working really hard." She glanced at Chris, who was still staring at her intently. She opened her mouth and the story fell from her lips in a rush before she could stop it.

"Before now, we were arguing all the time, you know that. So, the night I got home after Jessica's funeral, I started to talk to him about trying to start a family but he blew me off and I wasn't in the mood to argue with him, so I let it go. But, as we were getting ready for bed, he asked how you were doing and when you would be coming back, so I told him you were coming back that Monday. Well, that's when he started to flip his lid, claiming you were going to injure someone and then wanting to know why I wasn't more concerned about **him** and the week **he'd** had, which just pissed **me** off. I started in on him about how he always went to help Shawn and I never said anything to him, pointing out that you had just lost your wife and you needed some comfort, and then he accused me of cheating on him with you. I slapped him and…and he slapped me back." She finished, looking at Chris expectantly, waiting on him to respond. "He left the house afterwards…I think it surprised him as much as it did me." She added after a few moments of silence. He looked away from her finally, back to Ash who had settled down and looked like he was going to fall asleep at any second.

"Chris?" She asked him, tentatively placing a hand on his forearm. "Say something." Chris was mulling over everything that she had just revealed to him, picking it apart even though he knew it was the truth this time. He thought about how much he'd like to punch Paul in the face a couple of times, maybe even break his arm for even _daring_ to lay a finger on Stephanie. He got a little bit of satisfaction just thinking about it. But, in a very tiny voice in the back of his mind, he heard the part about how they had been arguing about him - about her spending time with him. It pointed out how she had been struck by her husband…because of him. He cast it aside, focusing solely on the man who had put the bruise on her face.

"Chris?" Stephanie asked again. He turned to her once more.

"Why are you still with him?" He asked her. "Why are you giving him an opportunity to do this to you again?"

"He's not going to do it again." She said firmly.

"How could you _possibly_ know that?" He asked. "He's already done it once when you never expected him to. What's to stop him from doing it again? Or doing **worse** to you this time? What if he beats you so bad you end up in the hospital?"

"_Stop it_."

"Why? Because you don't want to hear it?" He asked, his voice trembling since he was trying to keep it at a low level despite the anger coursing through him. "Well, newsflash for you – I don't want to say it! I don't even want to **think** it. I don't like upsetting you, but if that's what I have to do to get this into your head, then I'm damn sure going to say it! Jesus Christ, Stephanie, what happened to the woman who swore she wouldn't deal with any man who did that to her? Do you _want_ to keep getting abused?"

"What do you want me to do, Chris?" She asked him, her own temper starting to flare. "Am I just supposed to divorce my husband because of one domestic dispute?" He shook his head in disbelief.

"You've already convinced yourself that you're the one to blame haven't you?" He asked. "You think you did something out of line…like when you slapped him. You think you deserved it." She turned to look out the window, pretending to ignore him. He gently took her chin in his hand and tilted her head back to look at him.

"No one deserves that. Least of all you." He said. "And if you think I'm going to let him get away with it-"

"It happened a month ago, Chris." She said sharply, cutting him off and pushing his hand from her chin. "There's no point in bringing this up again, especially when my father just had a _heart attack_." She paused and he could almost see the brick wall going up around her emotions. "So, if you are truly going to be supportive, you will let this drop and you will **not** confront Paul about it. Understand?" Chris leaned towards her.

"I am not going to let this drop." He said to her quietly."However, in light of what's going on today, I won't cause any trouble. I want you to know in any case, this conversation between you and I isn't finished, Steph." Their eyes met for a moment before Stephanie turned back to the window, mumbling a "whatever" under her breath. Chris swallowed bitterly and looked around at the other passengers of the plane.

He couldn't believe that she had just let Paul off the hook like that. That she would just take that kind of abuse and not even put up a fight about it. That angered him almost as much as Paul hitting her in the first place. Stephanie was smarter than that – he knew it and she knew it. He didn't understand why she was just letting this go. It felt to him like she was putting a big target on herself, practically begging for Paul to do it again. To hit her again.

He could just imagine how it happened, too. Paul saying his snide comment and Stephanie retaliating with one of her jaw-breaking slaps, then he would bring his hand back and swing it forward, striking her so hard she stumbled back… Only in his mind, he always imagined Stephanie beating Paul to a pulp and then calling him to come and help her take out the trash. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. Paul hitting her had rattled her, Chris could tell that much, but he just kept coming around to his disappointment at her lack of a response. He wished she would have at least chewed him out or something. Instead, he felt like she had turned herself into a punching bag – a sponge for all of the abuse and anger that Paul would inevitably spew at some point or another.

He was angry at her for not doing anything to Paul about it, and he was angry at her for keeping it from him. She should have called him as soon as it happened. She should have told him that it happened when it did, instead of waiting for a month and telling him when it was irrelevant and his bringing it up to Paul would seem more out of place than normal. He knew that he had a lot of things going on at the time – he still did, but that didn't mean that she wasn't important to him. That she wasn't also worth some of his time. He felt like a horrible friend to her, since he hadn't known. Sure, he had suspected that was the case, but he had suspected Paul would do something stupid like that for a long time. He never would understand what Stephanie saw in him or why she had married him. She deserved someone better than Paul Levesque.

They remained silent for the rest of the flight, both of them lost in their own thoughts, breaking their silence after the flight only to get the bags down from the overhead bin and discuss which gate they were supposed to be heading to. They went to claim their suitcases and Chris noticed Paul in the distance. Stephanie must have noticed him as well, because she gave a warning look to Chris before she jogged over to him. Chris watched their embrace and was forced to admit to himself that she had been right about one thing. Things between the two of them did look better than they had in recent memory. But Chris wasn't easily dissuaded. He believed that sooner or later Paul would slip again. He just hoped he was around when it started to manifest the next time, maybe he would be able to stop it from happening this time.

"Chris, thanks for coming with her." Paul said to him, rousing him from his thoughts. Chris nodded and forced a smile, squeezing Paul's hand a little tighter than he normally would have.

"Well, I couldn't let her endure something like this by herself." He said, looking directly at Paul, daring him with his eyes to say something, to give him an excuse to pummel him into the ground. Not like he really needed one, but he knew it would look better to Stephanie if he had another reason for beating up her husband.

"I'm glad she had someone to keep her company." He remarked, gritting his teeth at the end as he pried his hand from Chris's grasp. Chris barely contained his smirk.

"Let's get moving. I want to get to the hospital." She said.

"You didn't get any of my messages?" Paul asked. She shook her head. "He's looking a lot better now, they expect him to pull through." Chris could see the relief wash over Stephanie, but at the same time he had to wonder whether or not Paul had been telling the truth to begin with.

"Well, I still want to get to the hospital, so let's go." She said, linking arms with him as he scooped up her suitcase. Chris switched Ash to the other arm and picked up his suitcase to follow them, feeling suddenly like the fifth wheel for some reason.

They drove to the hospital, making idle conversation as they went. Chris studied them the whole time, making comments when he needed to, but most of the time just watching them, gauging their interactions to see if Stephanie was really making the best decision. Not that he'd ever be able to talk her out of it – that was another thing about her, when her mind was made up about something, it was fruitless to try and argue with her.

He was fine until they walked into the hospital doors. As they slid open to welcome him in, he felt this feeling of intense dread crawl into him. He couldn't explain it. He just felt very apprehensive about being inside this place. He felt a little ridiculous having this…fear about a hospital, especially when he had been to one recently with Ash. Granted, during that visit he had been more concerned about Ash than he had been paying attention to his surroundings, but still. He found himself slowing down and even pausing slightly as he walked through the lobby. He took a couple of quick strides to catch back up with Paul and Stephanie, who hadn't even noticed he was gone.

He knew Stephanie was still upset with him for making her talk about her and Paul's "domestic dispute" as she had so eloquently called it, but he found himself apathetic to her anger at the moment. She would get over it in about a day or so and they would continue on like normal. She just needed her time to stew at him and see the light. They took the elevator up to Vince's room, and as they walked down the hallway, Chris remembered walking with Jessica's bed to the delivery room.

_Her hand had squeezed his so hard, he thought she was going to break it. The contractions were coming faster now and he knew that it was only a matter of time before he was going to be a father. He could remember her face in pain for a few moments longer before it finally passed and her grip loosened. He kissed her forehead._

"_I promise I'll be right outside." He said to her __She looked up at him, the slightest amount of fear entering her normally calm gaze._

_"__Promise me everything will be all right." She told him, grabbing his forearm before he could pull away from her. "Promise me."_

_He promised her it would and he held her hand until they wheeled her through the swinging double doors, where he could see the heads of the nurses and the doctor beginning to move around like__pistons in a well-oiled engine, doing what they do best._

But they hadn't succeeded that day, had they? He shoved the thoughts from his head and held Ash a little closer to him as he followed Paul and Stephanie into Vince's room.

He was asleep and a little pale, but otherwise he looked just like he had the last time Chris had seen him. Linda was sitting in the chair on one side of the bed, while Shane's wife Marissa and their son Declan occupied the chair on the other. Linda stood up to greet her daughter, hugging her tightly and Chris could see the years this had added to her. She hugged Paul briefly before turning to him.

"I'm glad you came, Chris." She said sincerely, hugging him tightly before looking to Ash. "Is this the little boy I've been hearing so much about?" She asked him, trying to make light of an otherwise dreary situation. Chris nodded and tilted the sleeping boy so she could look at him better. She smiled and patted Chris on the arm before going back over to speak to Stephanie. Paul had found himself a corner to lean in as Marissa walked up to Chris.

"Long time no see, stranger." She commented. He nodded and smiled, trying to ignore that feeling of fear crawling up his spine again from the surroundings he was in.

"Yeah, I've been a little preoccupied." He said, gesturing to Ash. Marissa fawned over him for a few moments before turning the conversation back to Chris.

"So how are things going for you?" She asked. "I'm sorry I didn't get to come to the funeral, I had one of my own to go to. My aunt died recently."

"Sorry to hear that." Chris said. Marissa nodded, watching Declan run over to talk to Paul.

"Ash is just too adorable." She commented, "Mind if I hold him for a while?" Chris smiled.

"Not at all. He appreciates women holding him more than me anyways." He said passing Ash to her gently as Shane re-entered the room with a couple of sodas in his hand, passing them out as he nodded his hellos to everyone. He, like his mother, hugged Stephanie but spent a brief amount of time with Paul before shifting his attention to Chris. He shook his hand quickly.

"Thanks for coming with her." Shane said. "I think it did Stephanie some good to have someone to talk to on the flight back up, she looks calmer than I expected."

"Not sure I'm the one deserving the credit for that." He admitted. Shane waved it off. Chris turned his attention to Vince laying on the bed once more. He could hear the beeping of the monitor in the background beneath Stephanie and Linda's conversation. He took in the whole scene before him, noticing the tube running from underneath Vince's nose to the oxygen tank, the IV in his hand, the plastic clip on his finger. All at once, Chris suddenly felt like he was suffocating. The walls felt like they were moving closer towards him and when he looked back at the bed, it wasn't Vince laying there, it was Jessica.

"Chris, are you all right?" Marissa's voice floated towards him. "You look a little pale." He looked to her through his swimming vision and then over to Stephanie, who seemed to have forgotten she was mad at him for the moment. He nodded his head and tried to swallow.

"I just need to get some air." He said quickly, before exiting the room. His feet were carrying him as far away from the room as fast as they could as the memory flooded his vision completely – the memory that was the source of his nightmares.

_The young doctor held his clipboard close to his chest as the elevator descended to the basement of the hospital. Chris was standing next to him, shifting his weight from side to side, dreading this with every fiber of his being, but knowing it had to be done. They asked him if he wanted to say his goodbyes and collect her personal effects and he had agreed, not knowing at the time it would involve a trip to the morgue where her cold, lifeless body was currently resting._

_As the elevator doors slid open, the doctor released his vice-like grip on his clipboard and motioned for Chris to follow him. The young man was decent enough to not try to make small talk with him, having been on these walks enough to know that there wasn't really anything to say, no comfort to be had in a moment like this. He led Chris down the hallway and through a couple of turns before opening the door and gesturing inside._

_Chris felt the chill in the air as soon as he stepped inside. It wasn't just the thermostat temperature that was making the room cold, he could just __**feel**__ the dead in the room, and he knew how ridiculous that sounded. The doctor walked over to one of the many doors in the wall and pulled on the handle, opening it before grabbing the tray and sliding it out, revealing a large mass covered with a white sheet. He checked the clipboard once again as Chris walked up to the opposite side of the tray. He looked over at the doctor, who then gently pulled the sheet back to expose her face._

_He didn't know why he was surprised to see her there. He knew she was dead, but somehow, seeing her on this tray, stored away like the food in his freezer just drove the point home for him. He pulled in a sharp gasp of breath through his nose, instantly wishing he hadn't because of the fumes. He clenched his jaw as tightly as he could to keep himself under control. _

"_We have her marked down as only having a few pieces of jewelry on her." The doctor finally said, clearing his throat. "Her wedding rings, a watch and a necklace. We gathered them in here." He said, shaking a bag lightly before setting it down next to her. Chris barely acknowledged him. "I'll let you have a few minutes." And with that, he was gone and Chris was left alone in the room with his dead wife._

_Her eyes were closed, mercifully, and she looked rather peaceful except for the blue color that had permeated into her flesh. Part of him wanted to touch her, to convince himself further that it was real and not just some hoax. He mustered up the biggest amount of willpower he could and put his hands on either side of her face before putting his forehead against hers for a moment. _

_It was like touching ice._

_Once again, he didn't know why he was so surprised at this revelation, but the realization of it crushed him. He kept his composure though, placing a kiss to his fingers and lightly touching her lips before grabbing the bag the doctor had left for him. He could have sworn he saw her chest moving at least four separate times, but he knew it was a mind game. He forced himself to numbly walk away from her and just finish his business, reminding himself that there was a little boy somewhere in this hospital that needed him._

Chris felt his hands shaking as he pushed his way into the deserted stairwell, running down the first flight at warp speed before just letting himself collapse at the top step of the second. He wanted so badly for things to return to normal, for these memories to leave him in peace. His wife was dead, wasn't that enough? He sat on the step, gasping for air, trying to _will_ the claustrophobic feeling of the hospital away as a hand gently rested on his shoulder. He turned and glanced upwards, Stephanie's concerned face meeting his panicked one before he returned his gaze to the floor.

"I'm sorry." He said, slowly bringing himself back under control. "For just kind of running out like that." Stephanie sat next to him.

"Don't worry about it." She said.

"I'm also sorry for snapping at you before, on the plane." He apologized quickly. "You just…you mean so damn much to me Steph, that I hate to think of you being hurt. I hate to think of you being in a situation where you can be hurt." She opened her mouth to possibly protest, but he continued. "It just burns me up inside to the point where I want to make it right, I want to make him pay. I just," he choked on his words. "I just can't lose you too." He struggled for composure and found himself looking away from her, feeling ashamed for bearing so much. She took one of his hands in hers.

"I'm right here, Chris." She said, rubbing her thumb on the back of his hand. "I'm not going anywhere." She soothed him. "And I'm sorry for being so snide with you. I'm so used to looking out for myself now and making my own decisions that I sometimes forget that there are other people in my life that want to help me, want to protect me and shelter me. Sure, Paul does it to a certain degree, but in an instance like that… I'm just not used to seeing that side of you for me. The only other time I saw it was when you punched Andrew in the face for not backing off when I asked. And that was years ago." She told him, a faint smile coming to her face at the memory. "I'm glad our friendship means as much to you as it does to me." She moved her hand to wrap around his wide shoulders and give him a half hug. Despite the fact that she knew he would eventually "talk" to Paul about the incident, she found herself feeling relived to not be carrying the burden by herself anymore.

"I hate hospitals." He said lowly to her. She realized then why he had rushed out of her father's room and why he was so distraught and pulled him a little closer to her.

"Me too." She said. "What do you say we check in on Dad for a little bit longer and then head back to the house for a while?" He nodded wordlessly, and she helped him to his feet, taking his hand in hers once more to walk back up the steps.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Yes, I know, I suck for not updating. I'm very sorry you all have had to wait so long for this! I hope this kind of makes up for my absence, and I promise to not make it so long between updates this time!**

Twelve hours later, Chris was back in Florida, sitting alone at his kitchen table staring idly at the opened letter and Jessica's journal resting before him. He began to wonder where things had taken such a downward spiral. Where exactly in the day he had taken a gamble and lost it all, or at least that's what it felt like. He unclipped the baby monitor from his belt and set it up on the table next to the journal, and with his other hand he raised the fifth of whiskey and took his second sip from the bottle. The alcohol burned a path down his throat and he winced as it did. He knew it was probably beyond stupid to be drinking, but he just needed something to drown out the endless mantra in his head. The constant mulling over of the day's events, which had been painful enough for him to endure the first time around. He set the bottle down and rested his elbows on the table, burying his face in his hand briefly before wincing as the bruises on his face smarted at the contact. He angled his head farther down where his forehead was resting on the palms of his hands and then he closed his eyes.

He was surprised at himself for caving in to drinking. He had always been a guy who enjoyed his alcohol, that was for sure, but since Ash was born he hadn't touched it and hadn't really missed it. He supposed it was because he didn't want to try to take care of his son while he was in an impaired state. Which was why he was only allowing himself three sips from the bottle. He had one more sip before he was going to put the cap back on and put it back where he had found it, and he was going to save it until right before he was ready to quit thinking about all of this.

_Chris followed Stephanie back up the steps to the floor her father's room was on. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders reassuringly as they walked through the stairwell door into the hallway, where Paul was standing, waiting for them._

"_Everything okay?" Paul asked them, looking at Stephanie. She nodded._

"_Everything's fine." She said, dropping her arm from Chris and stepping forward to lightly kiss her husband on the cheek. Paul looked at Chris as she did so. _

"_I'm going to try and pry everyone away from Dad for a while to go get some food." She said to him. Paul nodded. _

"_I'll wait for you out here." He said, keeping his gaze with Chris, who remained silent. Stephanie looked between the two of them, every instinct in her body telling her not to leave the two of them alone in the hallway, but she pushed it aside. Chris had given her his word that he would not cause a scene today and she trusted him. But that didn't make her feel any better. She took one last look at them before she opened the door to Vince's room and stepped inside. Chris folded his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall, nearly biting his tongue to keep from lashing out at Paul. The thought of what he had done to Stephanie reared up fresh in his mind now that they were alone, but he tried to ignore it._

"_All right, Irvine." Paul said to him lowly, stepping so that he was blocking him into his position. "Here's the deal. Once today is over, I don't want you anywhere near Stephanie ever again." Chris raised his eyes to look at his, asking himself internally if Paul had really just said what Chris thought he did. If Paul was really that stupid._

"_Excuse me?" Chris asked._

"_You heard me. After today, you and Stephanie are done. No more phone calls, no more weekends together. After today is over, so is your friendship." Paul said. Chris had to smirk. Oh sure, Paul was working hard on this new persona for Stephanie all right. He was working hard to eliminate everything else from her life so that he was the only thing she had left to turn to. What a joke._

"_And since when exactly did you get to decide who Stephanie spends her time with?" Chris asked._

"_Since we got married." Paul informed him. Chris nodded his head in mock understanding._

"_Oh, is __**that**__ how that works then?" He said sarcastically. "Did that get handed to you around the same time as your 'Beat Your Wife and Get Away With It Free' card?" The expression in Paul's face darkened._

"_What are you talking about, Irvine?" He asked, trying to pretend like he didn't know._

"_Oh come on, __**Hunter**__. Don't play stupid with me. You and I both know that __**you**__ are the reason Stephanie had a huge bruise on the side of her face for a couple of weeks." Chris said, the acid in his tongue flowing freely now._

"_Is that what she told you?" Paul asked him, shooting a quick glance down the hallway at Vince's room._

"_She didn't have to. I've got a spidey-sense about these kinds of things." Chris quipped. Paul let a lazy smile come across his face as he backed away from Chris, creating a few more inches of distance between them. The look on his face was completely nonchalant. Like Paul didn't care that he had beat his wife and her best friend found out about it. Like he didn't have a care in the world. Chris's blood boiled at the sight._

"_I should have known she'd go running to you about it. It's only fitting because, as far as I'm concerned, this whole incident was your fault anyways." Paul told him indifferently._

"_And how exactly does your hand hitting her face equal into that being my fault?" Chris asked him._

"_Well you were the subject of the argument. If she hadn't been so obvious about the fact that the two of you are sleeping together-" Paul said, but Chris cut him off._

"_Well, if you were man enough to please her in the first place she wouldn't have to come to me!" Chris shot back. In hindsight, Chris wasn't entirely sure why he didn't deny the accusation that he and Stephanie were sleeping together. They weren't and they never had, not to say that Chris hadn't thought about it a couple of times before he was married. But there was something inside of him that just knew it would irk Paul more if he went along with this stupid accusation and Chris wanted nothing more than to get under Paul's skin at that moment._

_Getting under people's skin had always been one of Chris's talents._

_Paul struck Chris in the face so hard and so suddenly that Chris fell to a knee from the force of it. Paul's face had turned red with fury and the mild pain that was seeping into Chris's jaw just served as a reminder that Stephanie had been on the receiving end of a blow like that not even a month ago, and he saw red. _

_Now, Chris wished that he had some kind of way to "let the record show" that he did not start any of what transpired between himself and Paul. He didn't instigate the conversation and he certainly wasn't the one to throw the first punch. But if there was something that could be said about his involvement, it was that he was very good at finishing both._

_Paul managed to get another couple of good punches in on Chris before Chris tossed him on the ground and really started to lay into him. He could vaguely remember some nurses shouting for people to come and break it up as he landed punch after punch into Paul's face. He realized at some point that he must have broken Paul's already inflated nose because blood was starting to spew from it. It wasn't until Stephanie shouted his name that he started to have an ounce of regret for what he had done. Stephanie pulled him up off of Paul, shoving him away. _

"_What the hell do you think you're doing?" She shouted at him, tears brimming in her eyes. "What is wrong with you?" Chris opened his mouth to defend himself but before he could even say her name she slapped him. He raised a hand to his cheek and stared at her, her tears finally streaming down her face._

"_Go back to Florida, Chris." She told him quietly, and he could hear the betrayal she felt in her voice. He opened his mouth once more to plead with her, to try and explain himself, but she shook her head._

"_I don't want to hear it. You made your opinion very clear on the way here. Take Ash and just…go home." She said, turning away from him to check on Paul. Chris watched her for a moment before turning to Shane and Marissa, who were standing in the doorway. Stephanie held the keys out for their car to Shane, telling him to take Chris to the airport. Marissa handed Ash back to Chris gently, sympathy lining her features. Chris maneuvered Ash to where he was comfortable and turned to look at Stephanie and Paul one last time before leaving with Shane. He took satisfaction in seeing Paul lying injured on the floor, but it was a small victory compared to the loss he now felt. As he turned to leave he noticed the one thing that would infuriate him all the way to the airport and even now._

_He noticed a small smirk on Paul's face as he turned to leave._

_And that was when he realized that he had been set-up._

_Shane was mostly quiet on the ride to the airport, which gave Chris more time to mull it over in his head, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. He had played right into the bastard's hands, and while he may not have been the one to start it, he was definitely the one with the upper hand when Stephanie had emerged and that was the only thing that mattered._

"_You know, that probably wasn't the best idea you've ever had." Shane told him as he put the car into park. Chris just looked at him. "But, I've got to be honest… it's something I've wanted to do for a long time now." He clapped a hand on Chris's shoulder. "Don't worry about Stephanie, she'll come around eventually. You know how she is with stuff." He said. Chris nodded a little. "Just wait to call her until you've both had some time to cool off." _

_All the way back to Florida on the plane with Ash in the seat beside him he wondered if Shane was right. If Stephanie would come around and things would go back to normal in time. He wanted to call her and try to at least explain himself, but he doubted he'd be able to get two words off without her either screaming at him or just hanging up on him. He didn't feel bad for what he had done to Paul. That son of a bitch didn't get even half of what he deserved, and in time he hoped Stephanie would realize that. What upset him the most was the fact that he, Chris Irvine, had finally been responsible for making Stephanie McMahon, McMahon-__Levesque__ he corrected himself, cry. Never in their many years of friendship had he been the one responsible for such a thing. And it made him feel like the lowest scum of the Earth._

_By the time he finally made it home, he wanted nothing more that put Ash to bed and to crawl into it himself, but there was one more thing waiting to wound him. He carried Ash around, bouncing him as he sifted through the mail. Most of it was junk to be thrown away, but there was one letter from the hospital. Chris ripped it open, figuring it was a bill for Ash's ER visit, or maybe something he hadn't paid with Jessica yet. Unfortunately for him, it was neither._

_There was one sentence in the center of the page that jumped out at him immediately. The words "PATERNITY RESULTS FOR SAMPLE – NEGATIVE" burned an image into his brain he wasn't sure he would ever erase. He lowered the letter and looked at Ash for a few minutes before it dawned on him what those words meant. One by one, thoughts started to flood him, but the one that haunted him the most was the notion that Ash might not be his. He sat on the couch and poured over the letter once more._

_He realized that in the beginning of August Jessica had called the hospital for a paternity test to be done on Ash right after he was born to determine the identity of the father. She had asked someone to come in and give a DNA sample for comparison, and the sample tested was not a match for Ash. Chris only felt slightly better reading that, knowing that he hadn't been the one to give a sample. Ash was still his son. Chris thrust the letter at the coffee table and jumped up to go get Jessica's journal. He yanked it from the drawer, setting it out on the bed, frantically thumbing through the pages until reaching the date she'd called for the test._

_The journal confirmed it. _

_She had called for the paternity test after having a nightmare about him leaving her after she told him of her one night of infidelity. She called it a "mistake" and a "one-time thing" and mentioned how she never spoke with the man again, except to ask for him to give the DNA sample. She never mentioned his name, only saying that it was someone Chris knew._

_His head had started to spin after that, realizing that his wife wasn't the saint he had originally made her out to be. Granted, she claimed it was only once and that she had regretted it for the rest of her days, but that didn't make him feel any less betrayed by the fact that she had done it. Jessica had apparently been a master of keeping secrets because he didn't realize their marriage was so bad she had to cheat on him to get some kind of satisfaction. She never mentioned the reason why she did it in that entry and he wondered if it was even contained within the pages of the damn thing, or if it was lost forever – Jessica taking it with her to her grave. There was only one way to know._

Three hours of reading her journal after that brought him to where he was now. Still sitting at the kitchen table, with his eyes closed and his face buried in his hands. He was about halfway through her journal and she still hadn't given any indication of who she slept with, and to be honest, at this point he wasn't sure he wanted to know. He kept asking himself what difference it would make knowing. He supposed he should be grateful that the test was negative at least, but he couldn't help focusing on the fact that it had to be done at all. He didn't even know what emotion to feel, there were so many swirling around inside of him at the moment.

He sighed and raised his head, folding the letter and sticking it inside the journal before standing up. With five more months before he was supposed to go back to work and Stephanie mad at him, he was sure he would have plenty of time to mull over it tomorrow. He took his final sip from the bottle and screwed the cap back on, stashing it back in the cabinet he had taken it out of. He grabbed the baby monitor and flicked the light off, before walking up the stairs to his bedroom in the darkness.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: At long last, it is here! Paradigm lives! I am truly sorry to have kept all of you waiting on this update. I can sit here and write excuses all day long, but the simple fact of it was, I felt like I wrote myself into a corner and needed to find my way back out. I have so many different versions of this chapter that I started to write, it's kind of ridiculous. I feel like (knock on wood) the worst of the writer's block is over and I might be able to progress on this story at a reasonable pace again. (That, and the fact that I'm done with school doesn't hurt either.) Regardless, here's the latest chapter - hope you enjoy it!**

_A loud clap of thunder sounded overhead as the rain continued to pour into the open room. Chris looked up to the sky above him, trying to shield his eyes from the rain and wondering where in the hell he was. He reached out to touch one of the walls that were surrounding him. _

_Dirt. They were made of dirt. _

_He swallowed thickly as he realized that the hole he was standing in…was a freshly dug grave._

_Fear started to grip him as he tried to reach for the edge to pull himself out, only to realize that he couldn't. He tried to dig his hands into the walls for support to climb out, but only succeeded in digging himself in further. There was another loud clap of thunder and flash of lightning as he started to hear someone laughing. He looked back up to the top of the grave to see Jessica standing there, holding a shovel in her hands. _

"_Jess…" he started, but she only continued to laugh as she started to shovel dirt into the hole. Shovelful after shovelful of dirt started to pour in around him and on top of him. The rain that kept pouring in was also quickly making a pond out of his grave as well. _

"_What's the matter Chris?" Jessica taunted him as lightning traced its way across the sky behind her. "Feel like you're in too deep?" She asked, erupting into another fit of laughter. He realized that somehow his legs had become buried in the mud, much like they would have in sand at the beach. He tried to step out of it, but found that he couldn't move. When he looked down again, the dirt was up to his chest and Jessica was kneeling next to him, looking at him with mock concern._

"_Aww, poor Chrissy…" She pouted, tapping him on the shoulder. He glared at her and continued to struggle with the mud that had surrounded him so quickly. His hands and arms were pinned now too, and he couldn't ignore the panic that was starting to settle into his bones._

"_This is what it felt like, Chris. This is what it felt like when you threw me in that box to rot!" Jessica screamed at him, throwing more dirt into his face._

"_I'm sorry!" He shouted. "I-" She yanked his head back by his hair with one hand and grabbed a fistful of dirt with the other._

"_And this is what it felt like when you shut that lid on me." She told him calmly, shoving the dirt into his mouth and covering with her hand. He continued to struggle and she pinched his nose closed. Chris tried and tried to move his head out of reach of her hand where he could at least get another small gasp of air, but Jessica wasn't having any of it. His lungs felt like they were on fire as he tried to pull oxygen into them repeatedly, but failed. Jessica leaned in closer to him to whisper:_

"_See you soon, darling."_

Chris shot up in bed, wildly flailing his arms to shove her away, while gulping in air by the gallons. A clap of thunder that resounded overhead caused him to jump once more before he was finally able to process that he was alone, at home, and had just been dreaming. He looked at the clock before groaning and roughly rubbing his hands over his unshaven face. Sleep was going to be hard to come by for the rest of the night. He was starting to feel like one of the kids from the _Nightmare on Elm Street_ movies. He felt like he couldn't fall asleep; only instead of Freddy coming to extract some revenge, it was his wife. He sighed as he leaned back against the headboard.

He might not have been dead yet, but Chris felt like he was already in his own personal hell.

His nightmares had started to subside a little once he had finished packing up all of her things. For a brief period of time he felt like things were slowly making their way back to normal. But then, like a bad habit, they were back from out of nowhere. And this time, they were back with a vengeance. Every night for the past three weeks he had dreamt of her. In the past three weeks, he had probably only managed a grand total of about thirty hours of sleep. On top of that, Ash had been overly fussy as of late, adding to Chris's frustrations. Every day, he felt himself sinking deeper and deeper. He couldn't remember the last time he had gone outside to do something, or the last time he had the _**desire**_ to do something. Most days he felt like a robot, simply going through the motions, and somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that he needed to pull himself out of the current slump he was in or else things were going to get much worse. He just couldn't find the energy to care.

He took a deep breath and reached for Jessica's journal on the night stand before remembering it wasn't there anymore. He had read and re-read every sentence in the journal more times than he could count; he practically knew the thing by heart. He had found himself thinking about the damn thing more and more, letting it eat at him that she had cheated, that he hadn't known about the cancer. It started to break him and he wasn't going to let it finish.

Two nights ago, he burned it.

He lit the fireplace in the living room, Ash laying on the floor with his toys on the opposite side of the room, and sat in front of it for a few seconds, looking back and forth from the journal to the fire, wondering if he could actually do it. If he could burn something his wife had spent so much time working on. He didn't give himself much time to think about it before he kissed the cover and tossed it in. He knew if he waited any longer than that, he would talk himself out of it. And as the pages of the journal slowly curled and turned black, he started to sob.

The journal had been both his kryptonite and his purpose in those weeks prior. He had put every ounce of energy into pouring over it to determine who she had slept with – whether or not there were any hidden clues. It gave him something to do to take his mind off the silence of his life…to take his mind off of Stephanie.

It had been nearly eight weeks since they'd spoken. Eight long, arduous weeks.

He had called her at least once a day every day for the first week, hoping to explain himself and make amends with her. She never answered. After that, he'd called her twice a week and left a message for her to call him back when she got it, and she never did. After the first month went by he simply quit calling altogether.

He knew that it was most likely Paul that was thwarting his efforts to make amends with Stephanie more so than Stephanie trying to avoid him, but it didn't make it hurt any less. If Stephanie had really wanted to hash things out and talk to him, then she would have made the effort to get in touch with him. Nothing stops a McMahon on a mission, especially not Stephanie.

However, Shane had been kind enough to keep Chris posted on how she was. Shane called Chris just about every week and filled him in on what had been going on with the company and what Stephanie was up to. He had offered several times to speak to Stephanie for him, but Chris shrugged him off. He didn't want to push her if she wasn't ready to speak to him and he certainly didn't want to play telephone with her through her brother. If they were going to settle this, it was going to have to be just between the two of them. Chris sighed and swung his legs over the side of the bed to stand up. He walked over to the edge Ash's crib and looked in.

Ash was still sleeping soundly, despite the noise from the storm. Chris found himself smiling despite his sour mood. He looked around at the bare walls of the room and remembered once again that he needed to go to town and get something to hang on the walls. He knew he needed to write it down because he wound up forgetting it every time he went out. He turned and headed down the hallway to the office and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, scribbling himself a note in the light from the computer monitor that sprang to life from his accidental movement of the mouse. Once finished with the note, he threw the pen back into the cup on his desk and glanced at the screen, quickly doing a double-take once he read the headline.

_Shane McMahon Hospitalized_

Chris pulled his desk chair out as he started to read, but the headline on WWE's site scrolled to the next piece of news. He growled in aggravation at the thing, trying to click on the main article that had caught his attention, but repeatedly clicking in the wrong spot right as the options rotated. After a few more seconds of fighting with the website, he finally clicked on the article to read it.

_On Monday's episode of RAW, Shane McMahon suffered a back injury in his match against Triple H and was subsequently taken to a hospital in Stamford. More information on this story will be posted as it develops. _

As soon as Chris finished reading that article, he immediately opened a new window and started to scour the internet for those wrestling rumor sites he despised so badly. Sometimes their information was useless, but sometimes, like now, they were useful in sorting out what was a storyline and what wasn't. He clicked on the first one he found and started to skim the headlines, quickly realizing that Shane's injury was not only legitimate, but also probably more serious than the article was letting on. From what he could tell, the injury was a result of Paul botching a move that any rookie should have been able to do.

Chris quickly pushed himself out of his desk chair and made his way back to the bedroom to grab his phone. He was scrolling through his contacts looking for Stephanie's name before he suddenly halted. Should he call her? Would she want him to, seeing as how they hadn't spoken in two months? He hesitated for a few seconds, staring at her number on the phone, his finger hovering over the call button. Finally, he decided against it. He scrolled back up through his list of contacts and decided to call Shane's wife, Marissa instead. He put the phone to his ear as he walked out of the bedroom and pulled the door partially closed. Her phone rang twice.

"Hello?" a female voice asked, answering the phone. Chris halted in mid-stride.

Stephanie.

"Hello?" Stephanie asked again. Chris cleared his throat.

"Stephanie?" He asked, unsure of himself. It was Stephanie's turn to hesitate.

"Chris? Is that really you?" Chris thought he might have heard a little bit of hopefulness in her voice, but tried not to get his hopes up.

"Yeah…it's me." He said intelligently, resisting the urge to hit himself in the head. "How uh, how have you been?" He asked her.

"I've been better." She admitted. There was an awkward pause. Chris forced himself to swallow.

"I've been trying to call you for…weeks." He admitted.

"You have?" She sounded surprised.

"Well, I haven't recently, but I tried right after…for about a month." He told her. "When I never heard back…" He trailed off. There was silence on her end. "You still there?" He asked her. He heard her take a quick breath in.

"Oh my God, Chris; I'm so sorry. I've had to change my number since then." She told him. "I lost my phone that night and had to get a new number. I had your number in the phone but I never realized I forgot to give you mine." He could almost see her shaking her head at herself for the mix-up. "I don't know how many times I picked up the phone to call you and talk about all of this, but it's been one thing after the other here and I figured maybe you needed more time to calm down or something." He laughed at that.

"I was thinking you were the one who needed the time to calm down." He admitted. She laughed in response and he couldn't deny how much he had missed hearing that sound.

"I'm so sorry for that, Chris. I didn't mean for things to be up in the air for such a long time between us, especially with the way things were… Look, I don't want to hash all of this out on the phone. Are you going to be in Connecticut anytime soon?" She asked him.

"Well, since Shane's in the hospital, I was thinking of dropping in for a day or two." He said.

"Yeah," Stephanie said, the lightheartedness of the mood immediately vanishing. "You saw that then?" She asked.

"That was my reason for calling Marissa in the middle of the night. I just read about it online." He said.

"She's still in with Shane and the doctor. So I've become the designated secretary." She told him. He nodded.

"How bad is he?" Chris asked timidly. Stephanie took a deep breath.

"They're pretty optimistic. They think that one of the sections of his spine might be a little bit compressed, but that it shouldn't be too bad. He's not paralyzed or anything like that." She said. "He was lucky."

"What happened in the match?" He asked her, phrasing his words carefully. He didn't want to talk about Paul before he got the chance to see her and say his piece. He heard her sigh irritably.

"Paul screwed up." She said, clearly angry about it. "He made an error in judgment and now Shane is here." She paused for a minute. "Look, I think Marissa and Shane are finishing up with the doctor so I'm gonna let you go. Got something to jot my number down with?" She asked him.

"Yeah, ready when you are." She relayed the number to him.

"Just call me when you get into town and we'll talk." She promised.

"Sounds good." He told her and they hung up.

Stephanie put Marissa's phone back into her purse right as her own phone started to ring. She answered without looking at it.

"Hello?" She asked.

"Just making sure it was right." Chris's voice came through the other line. She couldn't help the smile that came back across her face.

"I can't believe you would doubt me." She said, with mock indignation. She heard him laugh a little.

"I just wanted to double check, Princess. No need to get upset." He told her and she could almost see the smirk on his face at using her old nickname. "I'll call you after I book my flight."

"Works for me." She said. "Get some sleep." Chris let out a humorless snort.

"Yeah, we'll see." He said to her. "I talk to you later." They once again said their goodbyes and Stephanie tucked her phone away in her purse. The doctor appeared to have a few more things to say to Shane and Marissa about his injury, so she stood up to stretch a little bit. As she was twisting her back around, she saw Paul approaching from the stairwell and the good mood that speaking to Chris had induced vanished. He walked up to her timidly.

"How is he?" Paul asked her gingerly. Her lips pressed into a line as she all but glared at him.

"Oh, so _now_ you care?" She asked him angrily.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" He asked. Stephanie scoffed at him and sat back down.

"That means it's only been four hours since you injured my brother, and three hours since the show ended. You haven't called once to see what was happening with him even though it's your fault he's here." She spat at him. He sat down in the chair next to her.

"Look, I said I was sorry. I just had a few things to take care of." He said to her, putting a hand on her leg, which she brushed away.

"Saying you're sorry doesn't fix it, Paul." She told him seriously. "Apologizing will only get you so far." Paul nodded and lowered his gaze.

"I know, but I don't know what else to do, Steph." He admitted to her. Stephanie knew it was horrible, but she was finding it hard to feel sorry for her husband. She knew that he was perfectly capable of showing compassion – any time that Shawn had been injured, Paul had been by his side the moment it happened, sitting with him until Shawn's wife Rebecca would get there. But for some reason, when it came to Stephanie or anyone in her family, Paul just seemed…indifferent. And it was something that had been grating on her for the last few weeks.

He hadn't really shown much in the way of sympathy when her father had been in the hospital as well. Vince's health had taken a few nosedives before he finally pulled out of it for good. During those low periods, she only had Paul to rely on, since she had shoved Chris away, and she was finally starting to see just who Paul Levesque really was. When she wanted comfort, he assumed she wanted sex, which led to an argument that only upset her further. When she wanted him to listen to her talk, he always found a way to make things about himself. It didn't necessarily bother her at first, but when it started happening on a more frequent basis, Stephanie really started to take a step back and look at her life.

Recently, things between them had been really good. He had worked on the things that annoyed her and had been going out of his way to do certain things for her. She finally felt like he was the man she fell in love with again. But, earlier tonight, they had argued before his match and…well, she was sitting in a hospital hallway because of it. The argument wasn't even that important – it was over who was going to be champion after the next pay-per-view. Stephanie had been adamant about pushing some of the younger stars, so she wanted Orton to win it, but Paul didn't want to be seen as weak. He wanted to retain the championship. She told him that she was head of creative and if she said he was losing the match then he was losing the match. He had stormed off and muttered something under his breath she couldn't hear.

Looking at him now, Stephanie found herself thinking what she had refused to think all night. The thought she had tried to keep out of her head because she knew that as soon as she let it in, her mind was going to go into overload and start analyzing every little thing he had done. But, she simply couldn't help it.

What if Shane's injury wasn't an accident? What if Paul had done it on purpose to get back at her? He made a promise to her that he wouldn't hurt _her_ again, but it certainly didn't stop him from hurting the ones she loved, did it?

She looked over to see the doctor and Marissa walking out of the room and pushed those thoughts aside. Her brother needed her now and she needed to stay focused on the task at hand.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! This chapter would have been up much sooner, but there were a few things that I had to take care of in the "real" world before I could turn my attention back to this. I need to work on my time management skills. ;) Anyway, here's the latest update - hope you enjoy it!**

Stephanie was waiting in the airport for any sign of Chris. She was bouncing on the balls of her feet trying to ward off her nervousness about this encounter. She had promised to meet him at the airport where they would talk over lunch before going to see Shane. She wanted the air to be cleared between them before anything else happened. She watched as sign for Chris's flight number changed to let her know that the passengers were disembarking from the flight. She had scoped out her spot ahead of time, hoping to see him as he walked off the plane so he wouldn't have to wander around the airport to look for her. Now all she had to do was wait.

She watched as the people started to trickle through the corridor and smiled in spite of her nervousness as a family with two young girls walked through the gate. The girls appeared to be twins and Stephanie couldn't help but notice how much they looked how she had at that age.

"Waiting for someone in particular, Miss?" She heard someone ask behind her. She whirled around to see Chris, only to have her jaw fall open at the sight of him.

"Chris?" She asked him doubtfully. While his blue eyes had regained the twinkle they once held, he hardly even looked like the same man. He nodded.

"You expecting someone else?" He asked, adjusting the strap of his duffel bag over his shoulder, trying not to disturb the sleeping Ash who was in his car seat. Stephanie didn't say anything at first, just taking it all in. He was thinner, much thinner than he had been when she last saw him. He had grown a beard in that amount of time as well, although it appeared to be neatly trimmed. Even with his stupid sunglasses he always seemed to be wearing indoors, she could tell that he had some pretty dark circles under his eyes. Out of all of that, the one thing she was having the hardest time with was his hair. He'd cut it. After years of badgering and insisting that he was not the long-lost member of an 80's rock band, he had finally cut his damn hair.

"Earth to Stephanie?" He said, waving a hand in front of her face. "I know I'm a huge rock star and all, but you really need to stop staring – it's not polite, you know." Stephanie blinked a few times before smiling at him and pulling him into a hug. He hadn't been expecting that and for a few awkward seconds he didn't quite know what to do, but finally he wrapped his free arm around her, hugging her back and the tension he'd been feeling ever since they agreed to this arrangement finally started to subside. They stayed like that for a few moments longer before she finally pulled back, her eyes glossy from the tears she refused to let fall. She smiled at him before briefly touching his hair.

"I can't believe you cut it." She marveled. Chris smirked.

"If you saw how bad it was starting to look before I cut it, you would believe it." He told her jokingly.

"You've lost a lot of weight too." She said, suddenly wondering if it was partially her fault.

"Yeah," he said, running his hand through his hair, a nervous tic he noticed he'd picked up ever since he'd cut it. "I haven't exactly been the healthiest eater." He shifted Ash's car seat to his other hand and Stephanie turned her attention to the little boy in front of her, who had since woken up and was babbling away happily.

"My God, he's gotten big!" She exclaimed, looking up at Chris for a moment. He smiled and nodded. Stephanie fawned over Ash for a few more minutes before finally turning her attention back to Chris.

"Let's get out of here. I know exactly where to go for lunch." She promised him.

Not thirty minutes later, they were sitting down in a local Mexican restaurant, sipping on their drinks making idle conversation. Both of them knew what they wanted to talk about, but neither seemed to want to bring it up. After a few more minutes, Stephanie finally decided she was just going to go for it, when the waiter came back and took their orders. As soon as the waiter left, Chris looked at her.

"Before this meal gets any more awkward, let's just get this out in the open." He said. "I'm sorry…for how I behaved. I-"

"Chris-" Stephanie tried to interrupt, but he shook his head.

"Let me finish." He told her. "I should have known when to let it go, and I'm sorry that I took it to the extreme that it was when you came out to find us." He took a sip from his drink. "That being said, I'm not going to apologize for breaking his nose and I'm certainly not going to apologize for finishing what **he** started. You mean a lot to me, Stephanie, and our friendship means a lot to me. And I know that, for some reason, Paul means a lot to you, otherwise you wouldn't have married him. But I think you should know what piece of scum he can be sometimes." Stephanie nodded slowly for him to continue.

"I was trying to behave that day, I really was, but when he started telling me to leave you alone-"

"Wait, what?" Stephanie interrupted him. "He actually said that to you?" Chris held up two fingers.

"Scout's honor." He promised.

"You were never a boy scout." She pointed out.

"That's not the real issue here." He told her, continuing his story. "When he said that to me, I just…I kind of lost control. He was trying to dictate your life and it really pissed me off that he was doing it and you didn't have any idea. I mouthed off and mentioned how he had hit you and he didn't even try to deny it, Steph. He just brushed it off and claimed it was my fault, since I was the reason you guys were arguing in the first place." Stephanie took a deep breath as Chris continued. "He accused me of sleeping with you and…" Chris paused for a minute. "I don't know why but I didn't even try to correct him. I told him that if he had been man enough to please you in the first place you wouldn't have come to me." He admitted.

"Chris," Stephanie said in a condescending tone.

"I know, I know, I shouldn't have said it, but I _really_ wanted to set him off Steph. Part of me _wanted_ him to get pissed and take a swing at me, so that I could beat him into the ground. Not just for what he said but for laying his hands on you. Thanks to my big mouth I got that much.

"I honestly don't remember much about the actual fight. I remember you coming out and shouting at us to stop, and I remember getting pulled off of him. What I remember most is the look on your face." He said, looking straight at her, taking one of her hands in his. "When I saw you crying I knew I had fucked up big time, and I promise you that I will _**never**_ do it again. I never want to be the reason for you crying **ever** again." There was a brief silence that fell over them as he finished and Stephanie took the time to digest the words he had just told her.

"You've been practicing that, haven't you?" She asked him, a light smirk crossing her features as his face reddened slightly.

"A little bit, yeah." He admitted to her. She squeezed his hand. "But it's the truth."

"I never doubted it was." She said. "Paul actually told me the same story. Although he conveniently left out the part about threatening you to leave me alone." She told him. "He admitted to starting it and to arguing with you. He even mentioned how he had accused us of the affair and how you hadn't denied it. Funny thing is, when he brought it up to me again, I didn't deny it either." Chris cocked an eyebrow at her. "With Paul, sometimes it's just better to let him believe something than trying to explain the truth. Ironically enough, he was remarkably sweet after that. I guess he's been trying to win me back or something." Her sarcastic tone didn't go unnoticed by Chris.

"How's that been working for him?" He asked.

"Recently? It hasn't." She admitted. "He's been overly selfish lately and…I don't know…things just aren't what they used to be." Her phone started to ring and she glanced at it before rejecting the call. She looked back at Chris, who was watching her intently.

"I didn't tell him I was coming to meet you today." She admitted to him. "He doesn't even know that we've spoken." Chris was surprised.

"Why not?" He asked, in spite of himself. Stephanie stirred her drink with her straw as she shrugged.

"I didn't want him to try and talk me out of it. Any time I had mentioned trying to get a hold of you before he always seemed to have a good excuse not to do it." She said. "It's like I'm seeing a completely different person with him sometimes." Chris nodded and lifted Ash out of the seat before rooting through the diaper bag for a bottle. "You've really gotten the hang of this, haven't you?" She asked him, a smile crossing her face. He glanced over at her before starting to shake the bottle of formula.

"Some days it's easier than others." He said. "But for the most part, Ash is a pretty easy-going kid."

"Have you read any more of Jessica's journal?" Stephanie asked him. Chris looked over at her with an expression on his face that she had never seen before. He seemed to study her for a moment before turning his attention back to Ash.

"I burned it." He said finally. Stephanie's jaw fell open.

"You _what_?" She asked in disbelief. "_Why_?" He didn't answer right away and the waiter brought them their food in the time that he considered his response. When the waiter left again, Chris pushed some of his food around his plate with his fork.

"It just…It was killing me." He admitted. "It was the first thing I thought about in the morning. I'd start to pour through a certain section during the day when Ash was asleep, and then at night, I'd be lying there thinking about it again, wondering what sections I should search through the next day to try to find the answers I was looking for." He shook his head and set the fork down. "It was taking over my life and I just…I couldn't take it anymore. So I burned it." Stephanie grabbed Chris's hand and squeezed it.

"Hiding her cancer from you isn't –"

"Her cancer wasn't the only thing she was hiding." He said bitterly, locking eyes with her for a moment before looking away. "I was a fool to have been completely oblivious to the problems we had. I'm starting to think that the woman I loved didn't exist towards the end." Stephanie was taken aback by the harshness of his words.

"I don't understand." She said to him, plainly. He shook his head and turned his attention back to his food.

"I don't really want to get into it." He said. "How has Shane been progressing?" He asked, changing the subject. Stephanie regarded him for a moment, before answering him.

"He's doing good. They think he's going to make a full recovery." She told him, as they both started to eat. "Still acts like he's losing a limb though." She said and Chris chuckled.

"That's great to hear." He told her sincerely. The rest of their lunch was uneventful and while they weren't completely back to where they had been before, both Chris and Stephanie felt like a weight had been lifted from their chests by the time they left.

Later that evening, Stephanie was thumbing through the channels on television in Chris's hotel room while he grabbed a quick shower. Ash was, as per usual, sleeping so she was trying to keep the volume low so he wouldn't wake up. She jumped a little when her phone rang unexpectedly. She answered it quickly.

"Hello?"

"Where the hell are you? Why haven't you been answering my calls?" Paul asked on the other end of the line, anger evident in his voice. Stephanie sighed as she got up from the bed and walked over to the balcony door.

"I've been busy, Paul." She said simply.

"Doing what? Fucking Chris?" He spat at her. Stephanie stopped in her tracks. Her mind was racing. How in the hell had he known that she was spending time with Chris today?

"What the hell gives you that idea?" She asked him. "I thought we were past that crap."

"Yeah, me too." He sneered. "I'm at the hospital with your parents and they said Shane told them you and Chris came by together earlier today. I thought you were pissed off at him for the whole fight thing." Stephanie mentally swore at her parents for telling him, but she knew that she hadn't told them otherwise. She knew she probably should have said something to them, or him, before this got out of control like this, but she really just wanted to be her own person for once.

"We talked things over, Paul. We're just catching up." She told him calmly, trying not to let him get her riled up. The last thing they needed was to have another fight.

"Catching up. Yeah. You expect me to believe that?" He snapped.

"Yes I do." She told him, seriously. "If you really trust me the way you've been saying, you will believe that." She said.

"You can't-" Paul started, but she cut him off.

"If you really want us to continue Paul, then you will trust me when I say that there is nothing sexual going on between me and Chris and if you really want to know the whole story of what's happened today, I will tell you when I get back home." She told him and hung up. She took a deep breath and let it out again as she looked out at the city view in front of her.

"I guess that was Paul?" Chris asked from behind her. Stephanie whirled in surprise and saw him standing outside the bathroom door in a t-shirt and track pants. She nodded in response.

"He's a little pissed I didn't tell him about coming to meet you." She told him, throwing her phone on the empty bed, rubbing her temple as she thought about the mess she was going to have to sort out. Chris nodded as he walked over to check on Ash.

"You can leave if you need to sort things out." He offered. "I can take care of Ash from here." Stephanie shook her head.

"He can wait." She said simply. "He's overreacting and he needs to learn to trust me." She told him, taking a seat next to him. "Been married for years now and he still doesn't trust me."

"Maybe he's just worried you'll find someone better than him and you'll run away." He told her.

"Honestly, I think he's just worried about his ego being bruised." She said. Chris didn't say anything in return and they both just sat there watching Ash for a few moments.

"Jessica cheated on me." Chris said quietly. Stephanie turned her attention to him.

"Come again?" She asked, not entirely sure she had heard him correctly.

"Jessica cheated on me." He repeated, turning to look at her and she saw that same expression he'd had earlier in the restaurant. "I got paternity results back for Ash the night I got back from Connecticut." Stephanie felt her stomach drop.

"Is he-"

"Mine?" He finished for her. She nodded. "Yeah. Whoever gave her the sample to test with didn't match. Obviously she didn't ask me for one." Silence fell between them as Stephanie tried to wrap her head around the latest development in Chris's life.

"Did she mention who it was with?" She asked him finally. He shook his head and turned his attention back to Ash.

"No." He said. "There was a brief mention of it in the journal, but no name. Only that it was someone I work with." He turned back to Stephanie. "Honestly, at this point, I don't even care. I burned that journal to get away from this mess. I don't want to spend another minute thinking about it." She nodded before placing a hand on his forearm.

"I'm sorry, Chris." She said quietly. He shrugged.

"What are you sorry for? You didn't have anything to do with this." He said.

"I should have been there. I should have been a better friend-"

"Stop." He interrupted. "We've both been kind of slacking in the friend department. The important thing is that we're both here now – working through the mess that is our lives. Let's just…forget about it. It's been stricken from the record so we're starting with a clean plate." He studied her and she nodded as a small smile worked its way to her lips.

"I guess I should go before Paul goes crazy." She said finally. "You sure you're going to be okay?" He laughed at her.

"I'll be fine, Steph. Been doing this on my own for a while, you know." He reminded her. She nodded and gathered her things up to leave. He walked her to the door and they embraced once more.

"You're a good man, Chris." She mumbled into his chest. He nodded and smirked. He moved to open the door as she placed a kiss on his cheek. "I'll call you tomorrow." She promised, avoiding his gaze as she stepped out into the hallway to leave. Chris closed the door slowly and turned to walk back into the room. He was halfway to the bed when he realized that his hand was idly rubbing the spot she had kissed him. He pulled his hand away and turned out the lights before climbing into the bed.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: I can't believe it's been nearly two years since there was an update on this... My deepest apologies to any of you still reading this! I recently stumbled across this gem again a few days ago and I haven't been able to shake it from my head since. I hope to see it through to completion this time around - hopefully it won't take me another two years to get the next chapter up. Hopefully this will live up to your expectations! It's been a bit of a trick trying to get back in the groove again.**

**Some of you might also notice that the rating has changed on this story. Given the direction I think this is headed and some of the events in this chapter, I think that the "M" rating is probably for the best from here on out.**

Stephanie wasn't surprised to see the lights on when she pulled into the driveway. She knew that Paul was going to be upset with her since she had hung up on him earlier, not to mention the whole Chris thing, but she was finding it harder and harder to care. Seeing Chris today had done her good. She was happier than she had been in a long time and she knew that it was because of him. It felt nice to get everything out in the open and start fresh with her long-time friend. Of course, then she had to go and kiss him…what had she been thinking? She hadn't dared look at his face when she left – she was too embarrassed. She was used to doing that sort of thing with her brother or her father after their heart-to-hearts, but she had never done that to Chris. Not once.

She took a deep breath as she shifted her car into park and turned the key in the ignition. She sat there in the darkness of the garage for a few moments, thinking about Chris before finally shaking herself from her reverie and unbuckling her seat belt. She grabbed her purse from the passenger seat and made her way inside the house. Once inside, she tossed her keys on the kitchen counter and slowly made her way to the living room. Paul was sitting calmly in the recliner like he usually did - a glass of whiskey in his hand as he slowly raised his gaze to meet hers. Normally, a scene like this wouldn't have worried her. After the incident a few months ago, any time there was a chance that Paul could lose control caused Stephanie's heart rate to increase.

"Hey." She said to him simply, stopping in the doorway. He continued to stare at her, not making any movement to acknowledge the fact that she had spoken. She took a breath. "I'm tired; I'm going to get ready for bed."

"We need to talk." He said lowly.

"Can it wait until the morning when we've both had time to sleep on some things?" She asked him. He finished the whiskey in his glass and set it down on the end table next to him.

"No." He said. "I want to know what the hell you were doing with Chris today." Stephanie sighed irritably.

"Are you really going to do this now, Paul?" She asked him. "I already **told **you what we were doing. We were working out our differences and just talking." Paul nodded his head in exaggeration.

"Sure. Like I'm supposed to believe that." He said.

"If you trust me like you say you do, then you would." She told him, rubbing her temple. "I don't understand this, Paul. You tell me you trust me - that you want to work things out with me, but you never believe me when I tell you where I've been…Well, the reason I didn't tell you that we were meeting is because I am a grown woman. I have my own friends and if I want to catch up or mend fences between them, then I feel like I should be able to without having to run it by you for permission." She said calmly. Something flashed in Paul's eyes for a second, but disappeared just as quickly.

"I'm not trying to control your life." He said.

"Really?" Stephanie asked before she could stop herself.

"Of course not!" He insisted.

"Funny you say that, since you apparently seem to want to control who I'm friends with." She snapped. Paul's expression darkened.

"What the hell has Irvine been telling you?" He growled. Stephanie threw her hands up in the air.

"So I guess he was right!" She said, her voice raising a level. "You **did** threaten him to leave me alone." She scoffed at him. "You know…I bet you were the reason my phone suddenly up and disappeared too, huh?" Paul stood from the chair and glared at her. "You really don't want me to keep talking to him do you? That's what has you so bent out of shape – you don't really care that I went off and did something without telling you. You care because I went off and did something with _**Chris**_ without telling you!"

"That's ridiculous!" He shouted, stepping closer to her.

"Is it?" She countered. "Is it really so ridiculous? Because it seems like we have an awful lot of arguments after I've spent time with him or the conversation turns to him." Paul waved her off with his hand. Stephanie shook her head at him.

"You're unbelievable." She told him. "You _knew_ how close Chris and I were **before** we got married. You _knew_ that being married to me would mean me spending time with him and you never had any problem with it before. Why is this such an issue now? Because his wife is dead?" Paul looked at her. "Newsflash, Paul! He has a son! He's got bigger things on his plate than trying to get a piece of ass! Just because that's all **you** think about doesn't mean that's all **he** does!" Paul shook his head at her.

"You are so delusional if you think that the thought hasn't crossed his mind. I've seen the way he looks at you, Steph-"

"Oh please," Stephanie muttered.

"It's the same way half of the men in that locker room do!" He shouted, getting in her face. "Why do you think I have a hard time letting you roam around backstage?"

"I've been dealing with these guys for years!" She yelled.

"All it takes is one wrong move, Steph. Just one." He pointed out.

"Why are you so worried about me all of a sudden?" she asked him. "Why are you so worried about me cheating on you? Is it because you're worried about losing me to someone else?" She studied him for a moment. "Or is it because you're the one cheating and you don't want me to know?"

"You've got to be kidding me." He mumbled.

"No, look at me. Paul, look at me and tell me you aren't cheating on me." She told him. "You're so quick to judge me and claim that I'm off having affairs with every guy we pass. Now I want you to convince me that **you're** not the one who's actually cheating."

"This is absurd." He said.

"Answer the question." She demanded. Paul rolled his eyes at her before shaking his head.

"No, I'm not having an affair." He said. She took a deep breath as she stared at him.

"You sure about that?" She asked. He scoffed at her.

"Yes, I'm sure about it." He snipped. Stephanie let out a sigh as she reached for her purse and started to walk towards the staircase. Paul stalked after her, grabbing her arm and spinning her around to face him.

"I'm not done talking to you." He threatened. Stephanie didn't back down.

"Well **I'm **done talking to **you**." She informed him. There was a stare down for a couple of seconds before he finally released her. She shrugged him off and continued up the steps without a word. She had just set her purse down inside the bedroom when Paul came up behind her again. He grabbed her by the wrist and shoved her in the direction of the bed.

"Paul!" She shouted at him, slapping at him as she hit the mattress. "Stop it!" He grabbed both of her hands and pinned them with one of his own.

"You think I'm cheating on you? That's why you spend all of this time with Chris?"

"You're hurting me!" She insisted. Paul let a small smile grace his face.

"Trust me, not yet I haven't." He promised her. Stephanie started to struggle against him, not wanting him to make good on his promise and certainly not wanting to find out what he had in store for her. "I'm going to remind you who you belong to." He whispered. Stephanie could hear her heart pounding in her ears, but she tried to maintain some semblance of control. She started to kick and wiggle in every way that she could to try and get free from his grasp, even for a second, but Paul's grip on her wrists were iron clad, and he had quickly positioned himself between her thighs so she couldn't use her legs against him.

It was when his free hand was starting to undress them that pure panic started to grip her. Sure, she had slept with him before, that wasn't the point. The point was, this was not about to be consensual sex between a married couple. This was about to be a rape. She was about to get raped by her husband. Stephanie had heard about this sort of thing before and had always wondered how women got themselves into a situation like that, but laying where she was now, she could see how it happened a lot clearer than she ever wanted to.

"Paul, please don't do this." She whispered to him, her eyes brimming with tears despite herself. He shushed her and leaned in to whisper.

"Remember Stephanie, this is your fault."

Stephanie waited nearly an hour after he fell asleep before she dared to move.

She pulled on the first thing that she could find in the dark, trying to be as quiet as possible as she crept through their bedroom, grabbing the bare essentials that she thought she would need and shoving them into her gym bag. She grabbed her purse and her phone before creeping down the steps as quietly as she could, taking extra care to avoid the second step that creaked horribly. She pulled her hair up in a ponytail and grabbed her keys from the counter where she had left them. She made her way out to her car, tossing her things in haphazardly and quickly starting the engine and taking off.

She pulled on to the interstate and took off in the direction she had just come from earlier in the evening. She knew he would be surprised to see her in the middle of the night, but she also knew he wouldn't turn her away. She wished that Shane wasn't in the hospital – for some reason she wished that she could escape to her brother's house instead of Chris's hotel room, but she knew that even if he wasn't in the hospital, Chris would still be the one she'd turn to. The tears rolling down her face were like a stream, constantly flowing from her eyes and she wasn't sure how to stop them. She kept a firm grip on the wheel to try and keep her hands from shaking.

She wondered briefly if she was making the right decision by going to Chris, knowing full well what he would do to Paul when he realized what had transpired tonight. How in the hell was she supposed to tell Chris what had just happened when she couldn't even admit it to herself? She shoved it all aside in her head and focused on driving for the time being.

_Chris was holding Ash as he walked through the open field. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and he had decided to take the boy for a walk. Ash was smiling at him and Chris couldn't help but smile back at him – the little boy's smile was infectious. He kept walking forward, not sure where his feet were taking him, but feeling content enough to just let it happen. In the distance he could start to make out a woman standing with her back to him. It was Jessica, there was no doubt. Her white dress was flowing out behind her in the wind. As he neared, she turned to him and smiled as she walked over to him._

"_He's so perfect." She said to him, looking up at him as she touched Ash. "He looks like you." Chris smiled at her, letting his forehead rest against hers. He wrapped his free arm around her waist and pulled her closer, kissing the top of her head._

"_Can I hold him?" She asked, looking up into his eyes. For some reason, he felt uneasy about handing Ash over to her. He told himself it was ridiculous – Ash was her son too, she should be able to hold him if she wanted to. But still, there was something that kept telling him not to hand Ash to her. He decided it would be okay, if she started to seem like she was going to hurt him, he would just get Ash back from her. Reluctantly he passed Ash to her._

"_Make sure to support his head." He told her as she cradled the infant in her arms. His palms started to get sweaty watching her hold Ash. Seeing it was making him nervous beyond reason. He noticed that the sun was no longer out and shining, clouds had started to cover the sky and thunder was rolling in._

"_Looks like it's gonna storm soon." He commented. "We should get back to the car." He reached to take Ash back and she pulled him away from his grasp. A quick flash of light and it was dark outside. The thunder was becoming more frequent now, with lightning streaking across the sky almost constantly. Chris continued to stare at Jessica._

"_Give him back, Jess." He told her. "We need to get out of here before it starts to pour down rain." He tried to reason._

"_He's __**my**__ son too, Chris." She told him. "And I think he needs some mommy time." He reached around her for Ash once again, and this time she shoved him back forcefully. He lost his step and realized he was falling into a hole he hadn't noticed before. He landed on his back and looked up from the bottom of it before comprehending…it was a grave._

_Jessica was standing near the edge, looking in on him and laughing at his horrified state as it started to rain. The walls of the hole were too steep and too tall for him to climb out of, but it didn't stop him from trying. He dug his fingers into the soft dirt and started to try and pull himself out of the grave, but the dirt kept giving away, he could never get a decent grip. Jessica just continued to laugh at him, bouncing Ash on her hip as she did. When he finally came to terms with the idea there was no way for him to get out, he glared up at her. She ceased her laughing, but continued to smile. She set Ash down and picked up a shovel that had been stabbed into the ground. She started to shovel some dirt into the hole at him. With every flash of lightning that happened afterwards, he kept seeing her face change. She would change from normal Jessica to one that looked a little…worse. She shoveled a few loads of dirt into the hole, laughing at how it made him flinch before she trained her eyes on Ash. She walked over to the little boy and stood, holding the shovel in her hands as if she was thinking about something….wicked. _

"_You leave him alone!" Chris shouted. "Leave him alone!" He started frantically trying to climb the wall closest to her to pull her away from Ash, getting close enough to the top to warrant her hitting him in the skull with the blade of the shovel. He fell back into the grave a second time, this time getting soaked from the water that had pooled there. _

_He rushed to his feet again, ignoring the throbbing of his head and the ringing in his ears. He swung around to face her. The lightning flashed and he saw her raise the shovel, poised to bring it straight down where his son was laying. _

"_Remember Chris, this is your fault." She told him as he ran to the edge again, screaming as the blade came down._

Chris jolted awake, sitting up and barely registering a knock on his hotel room door. He threw the covers off and walked over to Ash and checked him over with shaking hands until he was satisfied that he was in one piece. He heard the soft knock again and glanced at the alarm clock on the table next to the bed, realizing that he had only been asleep for a couple of hours. He walked over to the door, turning the light on as he went, and gazed through the peephole feeling dread fill his stomach when he saw Stephanie on the other side of the door. He unlocked it and pulled it open, taking a step back from the force of Stephanie rushing to embrace him. He quickly shut the door behind her and wrapped his arms around her trembling form, his nightmare forgotten for the time being. Stephanie sobbed into his shoulder for a few minutes as he held her there, tight against his chest. He didn't ask her what had happened. He knew he didn't need to. He already knew that Paul Levesque had just made the worst mistake of his life.

After what felt like an eternity, she finally pulled away from him a little bit and looked up into his concerned face. He took her chin gently and tilting it around to get a look at her in the light. He didn't see any new bruises on her face, which made him feel marginally better. Maybe they had just argued and she had come back to be away from him.

"What happened?" He whispered, breaking the silence and feeling the vice in his stomach tighten when she started to cry again.

"He…" She choked on her words, suddenly unable to say the phrase that would change their lives forever.

"What did he do?" Chris asked her as calmly as he could, rubbing his hands along her back to comfort her.

"He raped me." She said her voice barely audible, looking anywhere but Chris's face. Chris forced himself to swallow as his entire body went rigid with rage. He held her a little tighter and clenched his jaw. "What am I going to do?" She started sobbing into his chest. "He's never gonna let me go."

Somehow Chris found the will to sound calm when he spoke to her. "Don't worry about that. Between me, your Dad, and Shane… he's got no chance in hell." She barely chuckled at his poor attempt at humor, but it didn't matter. He took her small bag and her purse and set them on the chair in the room before helping her into bed, all while she protested that she wasn't tired and she didn't want to sleep. He shushed her and put her under the covers while he lay next to her on top of them. He wrapped and arm around her and waited until she cried herself into exhaustion.

When the first light of dawn started to seep into the hotel room, Chris was still awake to greet it. He had spent the whole night lying awake next to Stephanie thinking about one thing.

How he was going to destroy Paul Levesque.


End file.
